Ants smarter than people?

Ants are able to solve complex problems, Australian scientists believe. Thanks to information, ants find optimal routes in the maze where people are always lost.

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A team of experts has used modern means to observe the collective behavior of Argentine ants.

People drop dozens of ants into a labyrinth network, consisting of 64 hexagons. The problem of finding the exit of the maze for humans is only 1 in 10,000. They allowed ants to experiment a few hours to 'study' the possible routes, then closed the labyrinth and locked it inside.

Ants are species with the largest ratio of brain size and body size.

I don't know how the ant calculated the optimal route to get out of the maze. In fact, they ran out in all directions, most of them came to a dead end before finding a way to escape.

The scientists then changed the structure of the labyrinth by rearranging the hexagonal units. But somehow, after only half an hour of getting acquainted with new complicated road structures, they know how to calculate the optimal route.

However, that result did not surprise the authors of the experiment. Biologist Chris Reed, a professor at Sydney University, said: 'In nature, every narrative shows the magic of collective intelligence. When these insects build their nests to allow tens of thousands of individuals to live or search for food, they all find ways to function wisely and logically. '

Professor Reed hypothesizes that ants determine the direction of the extremely small concentrations of special substances, called pheromones, that they release into the air. Based on the pheromon concentration they determine the direction of movement for all other members in the herd.

The intellectual ability of this insect can be explained in part by their brain size. The ratio between the size of the brain and the whole body is the largest among animals. For comparison, if human beings have such a coefficient, our heads will have to be 8 to 10 times bigger now.

Scientists think that with the algorithms that South American ants have applied, it is possible to solve the most difficult problems, from organizing computer networks to avoiding the world's megacities from traffic jams, fuel savings and reduced travel there to a minimum.