Walter Tschinkel at Florida State University has been making plaster casts of harvester ant nests to study ant architecture and behavior.
Plaster cast of a large P. badius harvester ant nest
From Tschinkel’s paper (more pictures at the bottom):
Nests grow by simultaneous deepening, addition of new chambers and/or shafts and enlargement of existing chambers. As a result, the vertical spacing between chambers is similar at all nest sizes, and the relative distribution of chamber area with relative nest depth did not change during colony growth (that is, the size-free nest shape was the same at all colony sizes). Total chamber area increased somewhat more slowly than the population of workers excavating the nest.
I’d like to see what happens inside one of these when it rains. I found this. Does anyone have anything better?
