Are ants anyway affected by the cellphones? The random question is the first thing which comes in mind when one watches the recently-gone viral video in which a swarm of ants are seen circling around an iPhone lying on the ground.
The video was taken on Aug. 30 when the YouTube user has kept his phone on the porch of his house in the middle of approximate 300 ants. When the phone starts ringing, as seen in the video, the ants suddenly start circling the phone.
The amazing video has garnered 3.8 million views on YouTube, prompting the users to ponder over the fact if the radiations from the phone has something to do with the strange ant behaviour.
Several entomologists have come up with different theories to explain the amazing behaviour of the tiny creature in the viral video. Australian social insect researcher Simon Robson of Queensland's James Cook University said that falling into a circle is one of the ants' natural behaviour and it has nothing to do with the phone, though vibrations from the phone might have excited them, Yahoo News reported.
Nigel Andrew, Associate Professor, Department of Entomology at the University, New England, however, stated that since ants use magnetic receptors in their antennae to travel long distances and judge directions, it is possible that electromagnetic radiations from the ringing phone might have disrupted their path and they ended up circling the phone instead.
Despite the popularity of the video, some online users seem to be unimpressed and have dismissed the video as a fake one.
"Not that ants aren't capable being tricked into doing amazing, fascinating behaviors but something about their movement in general doesn't seem quite ant-like to me," entomologist and photographer Phil Torres told Tech Insider.