Saharan silver ants survive the intense desert heat, with temperatures that can reach 158 degrees Fahrenheit, thanks to a special coat of hair it grows.
According to the New York Times, authors of a study published in the journal Science detailed how and why these ants venture out into the Sahara Desert when the temperature is at its hottest.
"This silvery ant is the champion of the desert, the species that does the best job of surviving in these difficult conditions," study co-author Gary Bernard, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington, said in a press release. "We thought the silver hairs help control heat and wanted to understand in detail how they worked.
"The silver hairs reflect sunlight at the shorter wavelengths while in the mid-infrared range they help the ant's body exchange its heat to a cooler area, the sky."
The researchers learned the ants leave their underground homes for up to 20 minutes a day and keep from baking where they stand thanks to the highly reflective properties of their hair. One major advantage to roaming the Sahara when the desert is hottest is that potential predators such as lizards are not going to be around.
"That hottest moment of the day is when they can find the largest quantity of dead insects," study co-author Nanfang Yu, a physicist at Columbia University, told the Times. "Just a bit later, and those insects may be blown away by the wind or buried by the sand."
The researchers experimented on the ants' coat by taking a close look at it and testing mid-infrared light on it as well.
"While there have been many studies of the physical optics of living systems in the ultraviolet and visible range of the spectrum, our understanding of the role of infrared light in their lives is much less advanced," Yu said in the release. "Our study shows that light invisible to the human eye does not necessarily mean that it does not play a crucial role for living organisms."
