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If humans worked together as well as ants, we might be more productive.

The creatures have long been known to work collectively to protect nests from predators and even to form life rafts in the event of a flood.

But now they have been caught on camera forming 'daisy chains' to pull a large dead millipede to their colony.

The behaviour has never been seen before and scientists are struggling to explain it.

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With a little help from their friends: Ants have been caught on camera forming chains to pull a large dead millipede along (pictured). The behaviour has never been seen before and scientists are struggling to explain it

Video footage shows a species of ants called Leptogenys making a chain to transport the heavy burden, somewhere in south east Asia.

Leptogenys is a very common type of ant that can be found in tropical and sub-tropical climates around the world.

Terry McGlynn, an entomologist at California State University at Dominguez Hills told The Atlantic that the daisy-chain strategy used by the ants has not been seen before. 

Helen McCreery, a PhD student at the University of Colorado, is an expert in cooperative transport strategies in ants and has recently published a paper detailing 40 genera of the creatures that work together to bring food back to their nests.

Strategies range from two ants carrying a leaf together, to weaver ant workers banding together to carry bats and even snakes up tree trunks.

Ants get by with a little help from their friends

Unique? Helen McCreery, a PhD student at the University of Colorado, is an expert in cooperative transport strategies in ants said the ant's daisy chain technique is special because they are grabbing on to one another instead of food, as seen here with leaf cutters carrying pieces of greenery

'To me, this behaviour seems to be different from what's been observed in other ants (including the weaver ants) in an important way,'she told the publication.

'These Leptogenys are moving their prey by grasping onto ants, instead of all grasping onto the prey itself. 

'One could argue that the chains occur because ants just grab onto anything attached to the prey they are trying to move, but I don't think that's what's going on here.'

 Ms McCreery pointed out that ants are very good at telling the difference between their own species and anything else, so it would not be a mistake. 

Individual ants may not be intelligent, but when the creatures work together as a colony, they can achieve herculean feats, whether that is launching a coordinated acid attack on a threatening bird, or manoeuvring a hefty piece of food into a small hole.

Biologists sometimes refer to the animals as a superorganism – a species that can only be appreciated in a group rather than as individuals.

For example, Woodland ants work together to jointly squirt foul-smelling liquid when they sense a threat overhead – such as a hungry bird.

The formic acid is not harmful to humans and has the same odour as vinegar.

However, it is enough to scare off larger predators such as woodpeckers and jay birds, who could wreak havoc on an ant nest – but the attack must be launched cohesively to have the desired effect.

Ants work together to survive in more peaceful ways too.

In the event of flooding, fire ants self-assemble into life-preserving raft using different body parts, including their claws and mandibles.

Dead useful: The video footage shows a species of ants called Leptogenys making a chain to transport the heavy burden, somewhere in south east Asia. Other species of ants collect dead insects ad transport them - but they don;t use daisy chains. Here, ants transport a piece of a dead bristle worm in India

Engineers and mathematicians at Georgia Tech found the tiny creatures linked their bodies together in a similar way to how waterproof fabric is woven.

An ant's exoskeleton is moderately hydrophobic so it can shrug off water, but the ants enhance their water repellence by linking their bodies together.

The researchers froze the fire ants to observe that they construct rafts when placed in water by gripping each other with mandibles, claw and adhesive pads at a force 400 times their body weight.

The result was a viscous and elastic material that is almost like a fluid composed of ant 'molecules,' they said.

The ants spread out from a sphere into a pancake-shaped raft that resisted submerging them in water.

It's a real thrill unravelling what at first looks like chaos,' Professor Tovey from the university said.

'To understand what the individual behaviours are and how they combine in order to achieve the function of the group is the central puzzle one encounters when studying social insects.'