Ants are amazing. They have a division of labor. They have armies and make war. They raise food. They hold slaves. And they build, Thier underground cities are impressive. But nothing like this.
This leafcutter nest in Brazil required removal of 40 tons of dirt. Tons. By ants. Millions of them. The excavation area, once scientists had poured cement into the abandoned nest and let it harden, covered 500 square feet and went down 26 feet. The city had ventilations, "gardens" for growing edible fungus on collected leaves, garbage dumps, and, of course, a royal chamber.
The city, excavated. Realize these are humans walking around in a city built by ants (YouTube, educational use claimed)
My favorite bit in this article is biologist Joe Parker's explanation of whether and how the ants know what they're doing: a "behavioral algorithm." He says, "That algorithm does not exist within a single ant. It's this emergent colony behavior of all these workers acting like a superorganism. How that behavioral program is spread across the tiny brains of all these ants is a wonder of the natural world we have no explanation for."
Amazing.
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