Story By: Anna Casap, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
Video Credit: CEN/@RIA Melitopol
This footage shows a huge ‘tornado’ of flying ants which have been filmed swirling in the air as a result of high temperatures.
The startling footage was recorded by a driver near the city of Melitopol, which is in the Zaporizhia Oblast of south-eastern Ukraine and alter posted onto social media.
In the video, the driver can be seen pulling over and in the distance swirling clouds of black flying ants can be seen above the road.
Pictures Credit: CEN/@RIA Melitopol
Some of the ants can be seen on the windscreen as the woman says “horror”. The huge clouds of ants swirl like tornadoes in the distance.
Experts have now explained that this phenomenon is caused by high temperature and humidity and is observed every year in late July and early August. This is the mating season of black garden ants in the area.
Reports state that this year the insects are especially numerous due to favourable weather conditions for their reproduction.
Entomologists assure that even in such large numbers the ants pose no risk to humans.
Melitopol is known as “the gateway to Crimea” and before the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014, 80 percent of passenger trains heading to the peninsula passed through the city.
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