A ball of fire ants act like a material

In this video, about 8,000 fire ants are placed in a beaker. The walls of the beaker are lightly dusted with talc powder to prevent the ants from escaping. The ants link to one another and as a group behave as a bulk material with viscoelastic properties. The elastic response is due to compliance in the linkages. The viscous response is due to the constant breaking and reforming of bonds under applied stresses. This "active matter" phenomena presents the opportunity to model the ant aggregation as a continuum with measurable intensive properties.