Am Like an Ant

Ants are fascinating creatures, which is why one of my mentors, E.O. Wilson—a distinguished professor and researcher at Harvard—has devoted many decades to the study of their behavior. Wilson was one of the first scholars to describe an ant colony as a “superorganism,” which defines the colony as exhibiting an intelligence and cognitive ability that is far beyond the capabilities of any one ant. Scientists refer to this phenomenon as an “emergent” quality. It is a capability that no human theory or model can predict—it's almost as if it magically appears when a large number of simple creatures cooperate.

We humans tend to look down upon lowly ants as primitive creatures, because any single ant is rather rudimentary, when compared to one of us. An ant doesn't have much of a brain and its behaviors are extremely limited. Yet a colony of ants can perform acts that are strikingly similar to us. Here are a few examples.

Some ant species herd and milk bugs, rather like we herd and milk cattle and sheep. Some ant species are very sophisticated farmers—they are, in fact, considered to form highly-civilized farming communities. Millions of years before we humans discovered agriculture, these ants evolved into accomplished farmers. They are commonly known as leafcutter ants. They harvest leaves of plants (or portions of leaves), which they cut and drop to the ground, where sister transporter ants carry the fragments back to the “farm.” It's not the leaves they are interested in, but the fungus that they cultivate on the leaves and then consume. Our human ancestors could have learned a trick or two about farming from these ants.

Have you ever hummed a tune, as you engage in some routine task? Well, ants do it, too. As the leafcutter ants scissor away at a leaf, they “sing” by rubbing body parts together (sort of like crickets). But these little singers are smart—their singing helps them in their surgical efforts, by assisting their mandibles (their chewing mouth parts) to cut a leaf more efficiently. But they also sing for help. If one ant gets trapped, it cries (oops, sings) out for its sisters to come to the rescue.

We may look at a tiny ant and experience it as an alien critter, but it's more like us than first meets the eye. If we take a closer look—as E.O. Wilson has done all his life—we begin to understand the similarities in our behavior. I may look down upon it, but in many ways I am like an ant.

Next time: ways we ain't like an ant.