Like Cheetah which is the fastest among all the animals, Saharan Silver Ant is the fastest among the insects. Among the 12,000 ant species found in the world, the Silver Ant was found to cover 2.8 feet in a second, which means it covered 108 times their length in a second. When coming to human beings, it means covering 400 miles an hour.
The calculations have been reported after these insects were closely watched by a group of researchers in the Tunisian deserts. The findings have been published in
The researchers have said that the fast movement of the ants is related to its adapting to the high temperature of the desert. Once out of their hides in search of food, they should be very fast in the hot sands as the surrounding temperature would rise to about 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
For tracing the speed of Silver Ants, biologist Sarah Pfeffer at University of Ulm(Germany) and her team traced the nets and then placed small aluminium channels for the ants to walk through. The movement of the ants were filmed from the top and then it was analysed with the speeds of a few other ants. And the result was that these silver ants turned out to bve te fastest among the ants.
