Here’s what a swarm of ants does when it gets near an iPhone that’s ringing. The answer is nearly certainly “due to magnetic fields”. University of New England’s Department of Entomology Associate Professor Nigel Andrew told that ants use magnetism to orient themselves.

“There are many ants that actually start forming in a circle without the phone”, Mr Robson said.”It’s an unavoidable outcome of their communication systems”. “If they’re travelling long distances they use magnetic cues from the earth to know if they are going north, east, south or west”.

However, Simon Robson (a social insect researcher) says ants are prone to crawling around in circles even without a gadget in the middle. However, the footage also includes one lone ant breaking free of the circle and walking defiantly over the phone itself, so maybe the video isn’t that fake after all.

As the video begins, the ants are seen running in various directions around the device, before all coming together and suddenly conforming to the same path as soon as there is an incoming call.

The second video is from 2010, and shows entomologist Sanford Porter explaining the phenomenon of “Ant Death Circles”, in which thousands of ants just follow each other in an endless circle. When the phone starts ringing, the radio waves likely disturb their internal compass and this makes them want to avoid the phone.