Who's Superior? Them or Us? - Part 1

Back many moons ago in elementary school, I penned an essay entitled, The Homo Sapiens of the Insect World. It was a paper about the similarities between humans and ants.

It's been a long time since I read that paper and a while since I've studied ants so I don't remember a lot of details, but just some of the similarities include: living in societies; communicating with each other; having a division of labor; cultivating crops; raising "livestock" as a source of food; keeping slaves; raiding other ant colonies; and making war. Hmm.. so I guess the lives of ants encompass both the good and bad aspects of human behavior. Not the very worst yet, since there are no ant politicians or lawyers but perhaps that's still down the line somewhere. And seeing as how 99% of the ants in a colony are female and the male ant dies soon after mating with the queen, there's no adultery either. I guess ant societies represent the dream vision of radical feminists: males (called drones) are useless critters who perform no work in the colony and exist only for one purpose. After they perform that purpose, they drop dead.

But let's examine an ant society and evaluate it in terms of the question posed by the title of this blog entry.

Observe a typical ant colony and you will see a group of seemingly tireless, energetic individuals. They all seem busy carrying out various functions that are necessary for the survival of the colony. Some are excavating tunnels: they grab a piece of dirt with their mandibles, then carry it out and deposit on the ground - this is what accounts for the mounds you see around ant holes. Ants share food: when one ant finds a food source, it carries what it can back to the nest and leaves a trail that enables other ants in the colony to find the food and bring the rest of it back. When an ant is hungry, it taps the antennae of a fellow ant and receives food that is regurgitated from the supplying ant's stomach. You can also observe cooperation as several ants will work together to drag large objects, and will also work together to defend the colony from an invader.

Kick dirt over the ant hole (at your own risk, of course) and cover the nest, and soon the ants will burrow back through the dirt to open the nest again. Now, if you observe all facets of an ant colony for a while, you will also see that there are some ants who seem to do nothing but stand around all day. And no one complains. Well, since we don't speak ant language I'm only guessing that no one complains although the other ants might be cursing the sluggard behind her back. But no one cajoles these seemingly lazy ants to do any sort of work. Come to think of it, maybe ants do have politicians. Or maybe these are philosopher ants.

The point I am trying to make is that an ant society functions and survives based on the cooperative actions of each of its members, much like a human society. Except that ants seem to do this from instinct; they are not actively aware of what they are doing and are not planning out their day, they are just programmed somehow to do this. And they do so unceasingly. Day in and day out, they carry out their tasks and the nest thrives.

So how is an ant society any different from a human one? Is one better than the other? You may think I am posing a ridiculous question but think about it.. and we'll explore this in subsequent blogs. That's enough for now.