Tropical Storm Harvey: Fire ants join together to make living raft in floodwaters — and it could happen here

If you needed another reason not to enter floodwaters, this is a good one.

Fire ants survive flooding by combining and
linking together to become a floating life raft.

Fire ants inundated by Tropical Storm Harvey's floodwaters in Texas have latched together to form a living, floating life raft to survive.

And, according to one expert, it could happen in Australia too.

How do they float?

All insects have a water-repellent waxy layer over the surface of their exoskeleton, as well as water-repellent hairs on the surface of their body, said Jonathan Majer, adjunct professor at Curtin University and the University of Western Australia.

Professor Majer, who has studied ants for almost 50 years, said these hairs "trap" air on the surface of the insect, allowing them to float.

Read the ABC News story - “Tropical Storm Harvey: Fire ants join together to make living raft in floodwaters — and it could happen here.”

Quaint island resort town struggling with water supply

Cindy Lazaris of the Catalina Island Conservancy
walks along cracked earth that
used to form the bottom of the Thompson Reservoir. 

This quaint resort town has a reputation for making visitors feel as if they’re an ocean apart from the troubled megalopolis 22 miles to the east.

So it figures that the tourists in Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops strolling past Avalon’s restaurants, bars and trinket shops seemed unruffled by the news that has riveted the attention of residents and business owners: As of Tuesday, the utility serving the island has imposed Stage 3 rationing, requiring everyone to slash their water use by 40% to 50%.

Drought is not new to the 4,500 residents who rely both on modern desalination plants and a complicated relic of old wells, pumps, tanks and miles of 10-inch pipelines to serve their water needs and those of the 700,000 tourists who visit each year.

Read The Los Angeles Times story - “Despite desalinating water, floating it in by barge and taking short showers, Catalina islanders are told to cut back even more.”