In industries such as mining, farming and forestry, ants can help gauge the health of the environment by just crawling around and being antsy.And now it will be possible to do that more quickly and cheaply, thanks to a new technique developed by scientists from CSIRO. It has been recognised for decades that ants-which are highly sensitive to ecological change-can provide a near perfect barometer of the state of an ecosystem. Ant surveys are so highly regarded as ecological indicators that governments worldwide accept their results when assessing the environmental impact of mining and tree harvesting.