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[Urist McBusDriver]

http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/03/concrete-poured-into-ant-colony-reveals-insect-megalopolis/72512

They poured cement into an ant's nest, waited for it to set, then dug out all the soil. It's amazing! And very similar to DF except for the lack of rectangles and magma. The ants build fungus farms and rubbish pits, apparently, and rooms for nobles. And carry four times their weight in spoil to the surface as they dig - they haven't got atom smashers.

In DF32.01, look out for the humans bearing cement wagons...

[breadbocks]

That's actually... scary. It's the only word I can think of for it.

[Megaman]

They will take over the world some day. Guaranteed.

[Nikov]

They outweigh us, you know. I bet they're just biding their time.

[Tarran]

My god, those ants are crazy.

[Akura]

The only way that could have been dwarfier was is if they poured magma into the ant colony instead of concrete.

[freeformschooler]

The only way that could have been dwarfier was is if they poured magma into the ant colony instead of concrete.

Then the ants would have pumped it all into a magma sea on the bottom. And below that would lie skinless, twisted miniature anteaters.

[Lagslayer]

It was an abandoned fortress. There would be no !!ants!! left to get revenge. Good news for them though is that they would have lots of obsidian on reclaim!

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

I saw that about 6 months ago when right after I got a friend of mine to start playing DF.  We were both in awe of the bloody size of the thing. 

[Aqizzar]

What kind of cement did they fill that nest with?  It's impressive that it's in anything like one piece and not full of pockets.

The architectural skill is amazing, but it's kinda easy to see where the pattern is.  It's not guided by a single intelligence, it's just that all the ants have the same fractal-esque understanding of how to build a nest.  You can see the same basic design repeated all over the lower areas - whenever one ant detects a need for a new chamber, he digs one and others help out, then it's used at random until the use sticks.

[breadbocks]

Somebody should totally point Deon to this thread and demand he make it possible for us to do this.

[CoughDrop]

Yeah, I saw this same thing in DF Discussion or something a couple months back.

[Sowelu]

What impresses me is the ventilation systems that ant colonies wind up with.

[Jackrabbit]

I swear I saw this thread last year and yet the video dates back only as far as December.

I guess pouring concrete into anthills is a thing now.

[fqllve]

You probably did see it last year. I saw this program on Nat Geo, I think, three or four years ago.