Some Canary Island ants have picked up an unwelcome stowaway — plastic waste.
Plastic entanglement is commonly associated with aquatic and ocean life. Finding plastic-wrapped ants suggests that humankind’s pernicious polymer pollution affects a wider range of wildlife than previously thought, researchers report September 18 in Ecological Entomology.
Scientists noticed the tangled insects while studying 113 ants they’d collected from the volcanic island of La Palma. One Lasius grandis ant was ensnared in a thin, red fiber, while a Monomorium ant was wrapped in a black fiber. Chemical and physical analyses of the fibers, which were woven around the ants’ bodies and legs, revealed they were made of plastic.
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