Teamwork 2

I took this picture in Corse, while camping at Plage d'Arone. I found these three ants busy in carrying a grape to the nest. They simultaneously attacked the fruit and began to cooperate, by placing at a distance of 120° from each other.

Once again, the question is whether we're in front of intelligent behaviour or not. Appearently,  this doesn't seem to be the smartest way to achieve the goal: every ant pulls in its direction and, even if they want to reach the same place, their vectors of forces are often opposed resulting in no movement at all.

So, are they "stupid"? Do they just grab the good, pulling toward the colony as a consequence of the pheromone stimuli, without any agreement? Maybe, yet I don't think it is so easy. They usually look forward when bringing stuff, therefore pulling obstinately in one direction can result in the unpleasant side effect of blocking into obstacles. By applying more forces, the group follows alternative paths along the way, avoiding the traps.

For the record, they took about an hour to carry the grape to the colony, distant less than three meters.

Teamwork

I'm Hofstadter's huge fan, therefore I use to look at ants as sub-symbolic living metaphors, without any real will except that of the colony. From the collective behaviour, smoothed by evolution, emerges a sharp intelligence.

Still, looking at such a stunning demonstration of cooperation, I have hard time considering them like empty shells that simply react to external stimulus. That's a fascinating change of level: do ants know about the strategies they're carrying on? and the colony, is it aware?

Emergent ants... the wet way

Ants never cease to amaze. A group of scientists of the Georgia Institute of Technology studied how groups of ants "link" themselves together forming a self-assembled organic structure that... does not sink!  "Even when enough force is applied to submerge it, the raft quickly pops back up undamaged" writes the New Scientist. Appearently, they grip with mandibles, claws and some "adhesive stuff" present on legs. How can this lifeboat "float" is still unknown anyway.

Ant colony is far more important than the single one, so they evolved many ways to bind together and preserve the whole swarm, by forming ladders, walls and, in this case, even a raft. Of course, sub-swarm units are important too: scientists discovered that they can "trap" a small amount of air, in order to keep breathing when submerged. Amazing.

Breakfast time