Flying ant day is back

Submit your flying ant sightings!

After the excitement of flying ant day, which happened in the last week of July in most of the UK, there has been a sudden encore and swarms of flying ants were sighted around the UK on 8th August. In some cases at least it appears that the same nests have produced a second batch of males and new queens.

Thank you to everyone who has filled in our flying ant survey – we have had over 5000 records so far which will be fascinating data for analysis. Even if you submitted sightings previously your results from this week will be just as valuable as those from July. We will present the results in October during Biology Week.

This sound track to this quick video explains about flying ants, and my last blog post answers some more questions.

About Rebecca Nesbit

Dr. Rebecca Nesbit is an ecologist, author, and science communicator with a PhD in ecology from the University of York, completed in collaboration with Rothamsted Research. She works as press officer at the Royal Society of Biology and has led projects in fisheries science, clean tech, and offshore renewables. Her writing explores science and ethics, including her books Tickets for the Ark and Is That Fish in Your Tomato?. She also worked on airport bee-detection systems and toured with Nobel laureates as part of the Nobel Prize Inspiration Initiative.