ARKANSAS, USA — On Wednesday evening, people across 5COUNTRY reported sightings of a mysterious cloud of bugs traveling around Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley.
As many took to social media to share their photos of the swarm, people wanted to know what kind of bugs these were and why they were traveling in such a large group.
Among those with questions were students and parents at a third-grade Greenland football practice, who say the bugs swarmed the field.
“I was sitting on the sidelines with a lot of other parents and we got hit by what looked like a few bugs kind of flying around. It was nothing abnormal. But then it got more and more intense,” said football parent Jared Ramey.
Ramey and his third-grade son, Greenland player Weslee Ramey, said the swarm of bugs quickly grew to be like nothing they’d seen before.
“The coaches told us, ‘Don't worry about the bugs, worry about the football,’” Weslee said.
Weslee said that wasn’t an easy task, and he’s not alone.
Hundreds across the area took to Facebook with similar experiences, all recounting sightings of what they described as a massive swarm of insects that looked like ants with wings.
After taking a look at those photos and videos, entomologist Dr. Austin Jones says he suspects that's exactly what they are.
“Oddly enough, I was out teaching a class where we were catching bugs in Canehill, Arkansas, a little south of Fayetteville yesterday, and at around 5 p.m., we had walked down this one trail, and as we were walking back, there were some ants that were coming out and starting to swarm there as well,” Dr. Jones said.
People don’t usually think of ants as insects that fly, but Dr. Jones says some do.
“They're known as ‘alates’ when they get wings, and they're ones that have been basically chosen to be reproductive for the colony,” Dr. Jones said.
When it’s time to mate, the king and queen ants travel in swarms across lots of locations all at the same time.
“They’re also trying to overcome predators that would see them as a meal. It's kind of one of those, ‘they can't eat us all’ type mentalities,” Dr. Jones said. “It's good for them and their genetic diversity to have swarms synchronized in lots of locations at once.”
Dr. Jones says these sightings happened in 5COUNTRY just when the conditions were right — after the first rainy days in a while.
“They need to have some humidity in the air for them to get out and do their thing, so in a lot of cases, those ants may have been waiting underground for a long time just for the right weather conditions so they could all see that cue to come out at once,” Dr. Jones said.
While a large nuptial flight can be an alarming sight, Dr. Jones says these swarms are usually very brief.
“It's not something that's going to last for days on end and become a plague … They're out there flying around to find dates, and then they're going to be off starting their own colonies, sometimes within a few minutes or hours after they've all been launched. So don't expect it to be hanging around ‘bugging’ you for too much longer,” Dr. Jones said.
That’s good news for those who share the same feelings as Weslee Ramey, who told 5NEWS just how much he liked those bugs.
“Zero percent. Actually, no. Negative ten million,” Weslee said.
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