A great trick is being used by fire ants to increase their water repellency. The researchers said that in water, the ants join their bodies, which increases their water repellency. But a single fire ant struggle in the water.

Study researchers said ants do have a water repellent outer covering, but by joining the group can float effortlessly for many days. In order to build waterproof rafts, the ants link their bodies. They do so by using their mandibles, claws, and the adhesive pads present on the ends of their legs to hold each other.

Tim Davis, an entomologist and Clemson University senior extension agent, said, "While it sounds like something out of a horror movie, the technique by fire ants has been used for eons to escape flooding and migrate long distances".

Davis affirmed that though their water repellency increases, they face threat while they are water from predators and especially from fish. The researchers said that ants have used this tactic and floated for days during the South Carolina flooding.

Lizzie Buchen from Nature said that the raft made by ants is porous and its base is below the water level, but none of the ants get submerged or even get wet. Study researchers also unveiled that ants can assemble themselves in less than 100 seconds.

They have a solution for rising water as well. When ants come to know that water is going to rise then they gather their queen and the colony's eggs and start weaving life rafts by intertwining their hair.

The study found that ants can considerably "enhance their water repellency by linking their bodies together, a process analogous to the weaving of a waterproof fabric." It also concluded that the ants along the edge of the raft may not be there by choice. "Central to the construction process is the trapping of ants at the raft edge by their neighbors, suggesting that some 'cooperative' behaviors may rely upon coercion," the study read.