Superorganism

Fire Ants

If you like to read about ants, here’s a fascinating story about the life, warfare, and death of an ant colony by E. O. Wilson of Harvard, founder of Sociobiology, Pulitzer-Prize winner (twice) and life-long student and theorist of the social behavior of ants.

“Worker ants are far more than automated specks running around on the ground. Even with a brain one-millionth the size of a human’s, an ant can learn a simple maze half as fast as a laboratory rat, and remember the directions to as many as five different destinations when she forages away from the nest. After exploring a new terrain, a worker can integrate all the seemingly haphazard twists and loops she made and, amazingly, return to the nest in a straight line.”

Also, from the same New Yorker issue, a short interview with E. O. Wilson about writing Anthill, his first novel, from which the story is taken.