Plastic waste is not only harmful to larger animals; even tiny creatures like ants are not exempt from its grasp, as seen in the picture above.
For the first time, scientists have captured images of ants entangled in plastic waste, specifically, plastic fiber threads. This photograph highlights the severity of the plastic pollution problem that is worsening on Earth. The image was captured by Armand Rausell-Moreno from the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid in 2022.
At that time, Armand was conducting field research on the island of La Palma, Spain. He shared the photo with ant experts J. Manuel Vidal-Cordero and Álvaro Luna, a professor at the European University of Madrid who was interested in the impact of plastic on the environment.
“We quickly realized that the story might be interesting because I usually read many scientific articles about plastic pollution and haven’t found anything published about this,” Luna, the lead author of the study, was quoted as saying by IFL Science.
In a study published in the Royal Entomological Society’s journal, the three researchers explained how they collected 113 ants from 40 different locations around La Palma. They discovered three ants entangled with synthetic fiber threads.
Lab tests confirmed that two of these fibers were made of plastic, with one wrapped around the ant’s abdomen and the other around its leg. The research conducted by these scientists was published in a journal titled ‘Plastics and Insects: Records of Ants Entangled in Synthetic Fibers.’
The affected species is the Lasius grandis ant, native to the Mediterranean regions of Europe and North Africa, and a species from the Monomorium genus.
To the best of the scientists’ knowledge, this is the first evidence published regarding plastic pollution affecting ground-dwelling insect species. They suspect that this has been happening for some time but has gone unnoticed.
“The initial data suggests that invertebrate interactions with plastics may have gone largely unnoticed until now,” Luna said. “Honestly, I’m sure until now, neither we nor anyone else have had a real estimate of how far this problem extends and whether it is something widespread and serious or not,” Luna added.
Scientists believe that the issue of plastic pollution is not limited to small creatures like ants. It also affects marine ecosystems, including species such as cetaceans, birds, whales, and sea turtles.
