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Follow my blog with Bloglovin Two genius ants show cooperation, inventive thinking, operating with a tool and moreover... “knowing” and using basic physics: creating a lever for lifting the branch.   Two red wood ants F. pratensis Retz. were carrying a locust leg to the nest. The largest part of the locust leg happened to get stuck under a small, dry tree branch (which is very big and heavy for an ant). Attempts to move thi obstacle were fruitless and ants left the prey and started to wander around searching for something. We thought that they had given up and had decided to..

Insect societies are often treated as “super-organisms” rather than groups of individuals. Within this philosophical view the concept of adaptive demography was developed by E. Wilson. According to this concept, an ant colony maintains a constant ratio of workers, sub-castes and ages. The question of “How?” remains without answer because nobody seems to seriously consider the importance of personal interaction, learning, decision-making and creativity amongst ants. We also cannot deny that in an ant colony a conflict of interest between cooperating ‘colleagues’ takes place and plays an importa..