Those Clever Ants, Part 1

I recently attempted to tackle a weighty book (7 ½ pounds, 732 pages, letter page size) by Burt Hölldobler and E.O. Wilson. Titled simply Ants, it got the best of me… just a little too heavy a read. But I wanted to try, and I did get a major boost to my appreciation of this social insect of the order Hymenoptera, family Formicidae, subfamily Myrmicinae. (All those 25-cent words is one reason why the book was more than I could handle.)

Ants are the pinnacle of insect evolution, and that’s a lot to say, given that insects are the most copious of critters. Ants' extreme success and longevity can be attributed to their highly developed social lives. Social critters generally seem to thrive better than solitary animals do. Life is a struggle. There are numerous threats to endure, such as competitors, predators, and natural catastrophes. When animals band together cooperatively, their chance of survival increases. (Consider Homo sapiens!)

Thus ants are both robust and plentiful. There are some 8800 known species. They make up some 10-15% of animal biomass in most areas where they live; in the rainforest, as much as 75%. Think of that: such tiny creatures outweighing most all other animals in their vicinity—even elephants and giraffes! They turn and enrich more soil than earthworms. They’ve been around far longer than many extant creatures. They first appeared about 100 million years ago and were unfazed by the disaster that drove the dinosaurs to extinction. Most species last, on a gross average, about one million years. Ants have pushed that much further. Pretty dazzling feats for such a little critter!

I wanted to try to understand ants better, partly because most of my impressions were formed years ago, when I learned to regard them mostly as pests. I came to think that the only thing rivaling a termite or cockroach infestation is to see a line of ants parading across the kitchen counter. But I sensed that, like all the works of Mother Nature, there must be something to appreciate about them, and even revere; so I decided to take a closer look, try to drop my prejudice, and seek to understand them.

I have written here before about my fascination with watching ants (6/9/08) and a bit on their intelligent behavior due to something referred to as swarm intelligence (1/25/09). My ant appetite had become whetted and Ants was a book to try.

Crucial to ants’ success is their caste system: an effective division of labor that gets many sophisticated jobs done. But even though they have a strict hierarchy of tasks, any one ant is free to communicate (mostly chemically, via pheromones) with any other member of the colony. This democratic feature is a major aid in helping the group to be successful—in contrast (the authors of Ants point out) to the rigid hierarchies in the human military and factories, where communication goes from the top down only. In some ways ants are smarter than we are!

Next time, more on ant intelligence and skills.