The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and […]

The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and […]

The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and philosophy. This is the fifty-fourth contribution in the series, submitted by Dr. Daniel Singer.

To Understand Ant Communication, We Can’t Forget What Ants Forget

It is well-known (to any reader of this blog, anyway) that ant communication is very complex and not entirely well-understood. Among myrmecologists, there is disagreement about how information is transferred (most think that pheromones play a key role, but some think there may be other mechanisms at play, including sound), what kind of information is transferred, and whether we should explain ant communication in terms of the communication behaviors of individuals or groups.

The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and philosophy. This is the fifty-second contribution in the series, submitted by Madeline Eller.

The Formicid Mystique: Embodied Social Norms and Common Sense

One of the reasons that I am happy to be a philosopher rather than a scientist is that I have never had to glue tiny stilts onto an ant’s legs. Some poor grad student presumably had this task when collecting data for Wittlinger et. al.’s “The Ant Odometer: Stepping on Stilts and Stumps”. In the 2006 article, Wittlinger et. al. argue that they have solved the long-standing mystery of how ants navigate to and from their nest without retracing their steps. Indeed, the Saharan desert ants, Cataglyphis fortis, can explore the surrounding landscape in a roundabout, Magellanic adventure, and then find their way back to the mound using a direct route rather than retracing their steps. How? They use what Wittlinger et. al. call “a path integrator”, which employs directional data from the ant’s “celestial compass” and travel distance as gauged by an idiothetic pedometer (ibid., p. 1965). The pedometer is crucial for the ants to know how far they are from the nest; when stilts were attached to their legs, making their legs longer, the ants overshot the location of the nest, and when the ant’s legs were shortened, they undershot the distance.

The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and philosophy. This is the fifty-first contribution in the series, submitted by Dr. Helena de Bres, with illustrations by Dr. Julia de Bres.

The Ants Who Prefer Not To

If there’s one thing we think we know about ants, it’s that they work hard. Ants are always dashing around, engaged in some urgent task—and they’re very efficient about it, too. Ant colonies involve a complex division of labor, in which each ant is assigned a specific role. Some are foragers, some gardeners, some soldiers, some carpenters. Others are babysitters, teachers, flood management experts or undertakers. Then you have the ranchers, who herd aphids in the fields, and my personal favorites, the “caterpillar massagers.” (What?) One consequence of all of this impeccably organized industry is that ants have colonized almost every landmass on earth. (Antarctica is a hold out, but you can bet they’re working on it.) Another consequence is that ants can make us humans feel bad about ourselves. “Go to the ant, thou sluggard,” says Proverbs 6:6, “consider its ways, and be wise.”

The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and philosophy. This is the forty-ninth contribution in the series, submitted by Jack Samuel.

Unity and Antnihilation 

Ants do things together. So do humans, though not quite in the same way. Ants do nearly everything together, but then, come to think of it, this is true of humans as well, though it’s easy to forget. (I’m working toward pointing out a difference.) The togetherness of ant activity is so thoroughgoing, in fact, that it has led many (including many past contributors to this blog) to wonder whether there mightn’t be some sense in which their togetherness constitutes a new entity: a colony, itself conceived of as an individual (perhaps, following Wilson and Hölldobler, a “superorganism”, which can be the subject of more perspicuous evolutionary explanations than a collection of individuals, just as organisms make better explanatory subjects than collections of atoms) of which we might predicate activities, aims, plans, and intentions, or whatever version of these we are prepared to predicate of non-human animals, if we harbor any rationalistic scruples against attributing genuine intentions to creatures lacking logos.

The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and philosophy. This is the forty-seventh contribution in the series, submitted by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò.

Antílcar Cabral: National Liberation and Soil Culture

A single mega-colony of ants has colonised much of the world.

Linepithema humile (LH) started on a single continent, but have now conquered vast stretches of land across the entire globe.  A 560 square kilometer settlement on the coast of California.  3700 miles of the Mediterranean coast.  A Catalonian supercolony.  Two more in Kobe, and parts of western Japan.  They’re here, they’re there, they’re everywhere.