Rice powder, Ants and Natural Disaster

Saw it in a newsgroup.. Interesting one..

Rice powder was ground to draw kolam in front of houses and common places
of worship. Ants fed on these rice powder daily. Whenever the rice powder
was not eaten by the ants, then the people knew that some natural
disturbance was going to occur. Insects/birds act as harbingers and are
aware of dangers well in advance. This way people used to use this simple
technique to escape from natural disasters.
Nowadays the rice powder (due to the cost) is replaced by limestone powder
which are not good for the ants.

- There was a program on how some animals escaped, behaved strangely during
tsunami on Discovery channel.