The researcher witnessed an unreal sight where ants rose from the ground like smoke into the high air.
On Monday The “stationary clouds” recorded by the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s weather radar were probably flying ants, says the superintendent Lauri Kaila From the Central Museum of Natural Sciences (Luomus).
Kaila called HS after reading about the case in the newspaper.
A resident of Vantaa cycling to Helsinki Juha Haataja was checking the weather on the weather radar before his trip, when he noticed something strange there: the “clouds” seemed to stay more or less stationary.
Haataja was able to suspect insects as the cause.
Read more: Strange clouds appeared on the weather radar
In the creation, Kaila, who is part of the entomologist team, actually studies butterflies, but she knew how to connect the phenomenon to flying ants, because she happened to see their flight herself. He describes the sight as impressive.
Kaila, who spent the weekend in the Tammisaari archipelago, noticed that flying ants were spawning from the ground, or more precisely, enemies.
“It was the end of a warm, hot day and it was quite calm,” describes Kaila.
“They almost rose high into the air like smoke. They went almost vertically and I followed their rise with binoculars no matter how high.”
Kaila says that she has seen flights of flying ants before, but never as many at once. He suspects that the conditions for the flight were now very favorable with the warm air. In addition, they could rise higher due to the warm air mass, so they could also be seen on the weather radar.
Enemies are ants, known colloquially as ants, and they can also sting unpleasantly. Unlike ants, they build their nests almost anywhere.
“They can be found under stones and moss or even in buildings,” says Kaila.
The flight Kaila saw was their wedding flight. In this case, the queens take flight with the buzzards and mate in the air. After the flight, the dogs die and the queens look for a new nesting place for the next year.
“This happens over two or three days a year. For some reason, they know how to choose roughly the same day when each of them leaves for the flight,” says Kaila.
There are dozens of ant species in Finland and, for example, ants make their swarming flight earlier in the summer.
“You can see them then, for example, when seagulls snap them out of the air for food,” says Kaila.
Kaila is not surprised that the phenomenon stood out on the weather radar, because the number of flying ants was large.
“It could be that the weather conditions were good for the flight and that’s why the phenomenon appeared so strongly this year,” says Kaila.
The flights of other insects can also be seen from time to time on the weather radar, such as the migration of aphids.
“Then they look a little different on the radar. These stationary clouds are most likely ants,” says Kaila.
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