there are workers that collect food,soldier ants that protect the workers,the queen lays eggs & is the only one that can fly,this could be for protection or scouting out new nests.
they all seem to work in harmony with each other for the betterment of the whole colony.its neat.
2006-11-26 04:40:19 · 6 answers · asked by forest lover 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Zoology
Ants are neat, and while that other guy was right about 'intelligence' not being a concrete concept, ants certainly can solve very complex problems. The definitely don't wander around aimlessly and randomly like someone else suggested. They have incredible cognitive abilities for navigating from food sources back to their nests. One of these is known as path integration, ants are able to keep in their memory all the different twists and turns in their path to find food so that when they do find food they can head in a straight line back to their nest. They are also able to learn the location of different objects in their environment and use these to find their way home if they get off course, like if they get blown away by the wind or something! When you consider that an ant's brain is smaller than the head of a pin, the amount of information they are able to hold in there and remember and manipulate, is pretty astonishing. Using electron microscopes and neuroscience techniques, scientists have identified tiny clusters of neurons on the brains of some ants, called mushroom bodies. They think that these structures are the sites of memory and navigational cognition in the ants. You might also find it cool to know that the navigational systems of ants have formed the basis of the navigational systems developed using artificial intelligence for robots. And as for the division of labor, I think you are spot on. Ants (and other eusocial insects) provide the natural world's best examples of self-organising systems and they are way cool and very neat!!! Science nerds rock-on!
2006-11-29 18:50:53 · answer #1 · answered by bbqbabyoctopus 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
You gotta be kiddin'. Please, please tell me you're kiddin'
ANTS !! SMART?!!??
Ants have the mind of, well, an ant. Watch them for an hour or two as they wander around on a sidewalk------no direction, no aim,just random movement. When they do manage to stumble onto something edible, watch what happens next. If they manage to drop it, which almost always happens, they scramble around like the morons they are hoping to bump into it again.
Ask a worker ant what her life is like. No bed of roses, lemme tell ya. Up with the sun every day, searching for food as described above, doing this day after day until;l she's no longer able, and then being dumped out with the garbage.
Actually, it is the whole ant colony that is a living organism, the individual units, or ants, have no consciousness, no will, and no self identity. So, if being a zombie sounds like a neat thing----then yes, ants are neat.
2006-11-26 06:28:28 · answer #2 · answered by JIMBO 4 · 2⤊ 2⤋
Are Ants Intelligent
2017-01-18 06:14:10 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
"Intelligence" is a human concept, and really should not be used when referring to other animals. Ants operate on the instinctual level...neither "intelligent" or "stupid". They just do what they do...because that's what their little inner programs direct them to do.
2006-11-26 05:40:20 · answer #4 · answered by OilCityBug 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
ants are not intelligent mate. they are automatons. lok them uo in an encyclopaedia or something
2006-11-26 04:42:46 · answer #5 · answered by de bizzle 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Because they can't read and write
2006-11-26 04:43:07 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋