Ask Me Everything5

Finding a matę

As dusk falls in the mangrove swamps of Thailand, thousands of fireflies gang up to find a matę. They flash in unison, forming a large, flickering Cloud.

Keeping snug

In Canada, hundreds of garter snakes snuggle up all winter long in underground dens. Coiling their bodies together helps them keep warm.

House hunting

Bees swarm when their colony gets too crowded. While scouts look for a new nest, the other bees hang out and crawl over one another in a bee bali.

Saving energy

Birds such as geese flock together to go on long migrations. Flying in a “V” cuts down on air resistance and allows the birds to glide and save energy.

Safety

Loners are often the first animals to be gobbled up by predators. Many fish swim together in groups known as schools.

300 million

The number of monarch butterflies that migrate each year from Canada to Mexico—a distance of morę than 1,865 miles (3,000 km)

50 billion

The total number of locusts in the 50 swarms that invaded Kenya in 1954; together, the swarms covered an area of morę than 386 sq miles (1,000 sq km)

30,000

The number of pieces of slain prey carried back to the nest each day by a swarm of army ants

1 trillion

The number of American periodical cicadas in a swarm—luckily, they only swarm once every 17 years

How big is a swarm?

A giant creature is heading your way. As it closes in, you’re shocked to see that it’s actually thousands of smaller creatures. It’s a swarm! The biggest swarms can be seen from space. Pacific waters turn red when krill congregate. A swarm of locusts can biot out the Sun, and millions of cicadas turn a forest floor into a heaving carpet.

How to:

avoid being chomped by a piranha

Avoiding the traffic

01.

W ■ ■ Piranhas are only found in certain Amazonian rivers.

If you're worried, don’t swim in South America!

02.

w Ai ■ If you must take the plunge, try to keep quiet. Noise and splashing attract hungry piranha packs.

In the ram forests of South America, columns of army ants swarm over the forest floor. Like rush-hour commuters, they want to avoid traffic jams, so they follow a three-lane highway laid down by ant scouts. Returning ants in the middle lane use their antennae to avoid bumping into ants heading off for work in the two outer lanes.

03.

W A# ■ Like sharks, piranhas get very excited when they smell blood. If you out yourself, get out of the water—quick!

04.

w m Don t swim in the dry season. Water levels are Iow, and there are thousands of young piranhas looking for food.