Ant sex cuts off town’s internet: Randy insects cause chaos in Germany
Ant sex shuts down the city’s internet: Randy bugs cause chaos in Germany
- Insects chose the telecommunications provider’s distribution box as their love nest
- Their sex acts broke the internet, leaving residents offline for an entire week
The thriving sex life of an ant colony has caused chaos in a German village after the internet was shut down.
The ants chose a distribution box belonging to the local telecommunications provider as their love nest in the village near Waldenburg in West Germany.
As the bugs worked, they left a wafer-thin trail of acid that ate through the cables and circuit boards.
Their sex acts literally broke the internet, leaving many angry residents in their wake who had to go an entire week without being able to call or search online for how to kill the ants’ sex drive.
Local Manfred Wörl, 66, told German newspaper Tag24: ‘This was a catastrophe! The whole area was hit in one fell swoop.’
As the ants worked, they left a wafer-thin trail of acid that ate through the cables and circuit boards (file image)
The ants chose a distribution box belonging to the local telecommunications provider as their love nest in a village near Waldenburg (pictured) in western Germany
Insect expert Matthias Nuss explains that the ant’s typical mating period is in the spring, after which they look for a new nest.
“The young ant colony has settled in the distribution box because they think it’s a cave,” he told Tag24.
As the ants crawled around the cabinet, they left behind a secretion containing up to 2 milligrams of formic acid, which is corrosive to metal and tissue.
This may have defended them from natural enemies, but failed to protect them from the exterminator sent to end the orgy.
After the ants were removed, the cables and circuit boards were replaced – but are they safe from the ants for long?
This year alone, Telekom, which is in charge of the distribution boxes, registered five failures due to an ant infestation and spokesman Georg von Wagner said that the ants crawling over the electronic components caused a short circuit.
While they may be gone now, the next ant orgy may be just a few seasons away.
Insect expert Matthias Nuss explained that the ant’s typical mating period was in the spring, after which they started looking for a new nest: ‘The young ant colony settled in the distribution box because they think it’s a cave’ (photo: road in Waldenburg, Germany)