Buzz
Ant Intelligence
When considering intelligent members of the animal kingdom, the creatures that immediately come to mind are apes and monkeys. However, the social lives of certain members of the insect kingdom are complex enough to suggest more than a hint of intelligence. Among these, the world of the ant has recently come under considerable scrutiny, and the notion that ants display sparks of cognition has certainly not been rejected by those involved in these investigations.
Ants store food, repel attackers, and use chemical signals to communicate with each other in case of attack. Such chemical communication can be compared to human use of visual and auditory channels (like religious chants, advertising images and jingles, political slogans, and martial music) to arouse and propagate moods and attitudes. Biologist Lewis Thomas once remarked that ants are so similar to human beings as to be embarrassing. They cultivate fungi, raise aphids as livestock, wage war with armies, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labor, and continually exchange information. They do everything except watch television.
* aphids: small insects of a different species from ants
However, in ants, there is no cultural transmission – everything must be encoded in their genes – whereas in humans, the opposite is true. Only basic instincts are carried in the genes of a newborn baby; other skills are learned from others in the community as the child grows up. It may seem that this cultural continuity gives us a huge advantage over ants. They have never mastered fire nor progressed. Their fungus farming and aphid herding crafts are sophisticated when compared to the agricultural skills of humans five thousand years ago but have been completely overtaken by modern human agribusiness.
Or have they? The farming methods of ants are at least sustainable. They do not destroy environments or consume enormous amounts of energy. Furthermore, recent evidence suggests that ant crop farming may be more sophisticated and adaptable than previously thought.
Ants were farmers fifty million years before humans were. Ants can’t digest the cellulose in leaves – but some fungi can. Therefore, ants cultivate these fungi in their nests, bringing them leaves to feed on, and then use them as a source of food. Farmer ants produce antibiotics to control other fungi that might act as ‘weeds’, and spread waste to fertilise the crop.
It was previously believed that the fungus cultivated by ants was a single type that they had maintained, essentially unchanged from the distant past. This is not the case. Ulrich Mueller from Maryland and his colleagues genetically screened 862 different types of fungi taken from ants' nests. These turned out to be highly diverse: it appears that ants are continually domesticating new species. Even more remarkably, DNA analysis of the fungi suggests that the ants improve or modify the fungi by regularly exchanging and sharing strains with neighboring ant colonies.
While prehistoric humans had no exposure to urban lifestyles – the hothouse of intelligence – evidence suggests that ants have been living in urban settings for nearly a hundred million years, developing and maintaining underground cities with specialized chambers and tunnels.
When we look at cities like Mexico City, Tokyo, and Los Angeles, we are amazed at what humans have accomplished. However, Hoelldobler and Wilson's magnificent work for ant enthusiasts, 'The Ants,' describes a supercolony of the ant Formica yessensis on the Ishikari Coast of Hokkaido. This 'megalopolis' reportedly consists of 360 million workers and a million queens living in 4,500 interconnected nests over a territory of 2.7 square kilometers.
Such enduring and intricately woven levels of technical achievement far surpass anything achieved by our distant ancestors. We admire as masterpieces the cave paintings in southern France and elsewhere, dating back some 20,000 years. Ant societies existed in something akin to their present form over seventy million years ago. In comparison, prehistoric humans appear technologically primitive. Could this be a kind of intelligence, though of a different kind?
Research carried out at Oxford, Sussex, and Zurich Universities has demonstrated that when desert ants return from a foraging trip, they navigate by integrating bearings and distances, which they continuously update in their heads. They combine the evidence of visual landmarks with a mental library of local directions, all within a framework that is consulted and updated. Therefore, ants can also learn.
And in a twelve-year programme of research, Ryabko and Reznikova have discovered evidence that ants can convey very intricate messages. Scouts who found food in a maze returned to organize their foraging teams. They engaged in contact sessions, after which the scout was removed to observe her team's response. Often, the foragers proceeded to the exact spot in the maze where the food had been. Elaborate measures were taken to prevent the foraging team from using scent clues. Current discussion revolves around whether the route through the maze is communicated as a 'sequence of left-right turns' or as a 'compass bearing and distance' message.
Throughout this extensive study, Reznikova has become so attached to her laboratory ants that she feels she knows them as individuals – even without the paint spots used for marking them. It's no wonder that Edward Wilson, in his essay 'In the Company of Ants,' advises readers who ask what to do with ants in their kitchen: 'Watch where you step. Be careful of these little lives.'
Questions 1-6Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 155?In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet, write:
TRUE if the statement agrees with the informationFALSE if the statement contradicts the informationNOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
1. Ants use the same channels of communication as humans do.2. City life is one factor that encourages the development of intelligence.3. Ants can build large cities more quickly than humans do.4. Some ants can find their way by making calculations based on distance and position. 5. In one experiment, foraging teams were able to use their sense of smell to find food. 6. The essay. ‘In the company of ants’ explores ant communication.
Questions 7-13Complete the summary using the list of words, A-O, below.Write the correct letter, A-O, in boxes 7-13 on your answer sheet.
Ants as agriculturalists
Ants have sophisticated methods of farming, including herding livestock and growing crops, which are in many ways similar to those used in human agriculture. The ants cultivate a large number of different species. of edible fungi which convert 7………………… into a form which they can digest. They use their own natall 8………………… as weed-killers and also use unwanted materials as 9…………………… Genetic analysis shows they constantly upgrade these fungi by developing new species and by 10………………… species with neighboring ant colonies. In fact, the farming methods of ants could be said to be more advanced than human agribusiness, since they use 11………………… methods, they do not affect the 12……………… and do not waste.
A. aphids
B. agricultural
C. cellulose
D. exchanging
E. energy
F. fertilizers
G. food
H. Fungi
I. growing
J. interbreeding
K. natural
L. other species
M. secretions
N. sustainable
O. environment
Answer:
1. FALSE
2. TRUE
3. NOT GIVEN
4. TRUE
5. FALSE
6. NOT GIVEN
7. C
8. M
9. F
10. D
11. N
12. O
13. E
