Ants have the impressive ability to work together to accomplish tasks. The insects are particularly noted for their cooperation when carrying food and other heavy loads.
Now, scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, have unveiled the mystery of this behavior. By studying a species of ant known as longhorn crazy ants (Paratrechina longicornis), the researchers appeared to have figured out how these social insects cooperate to transport heavy loads.
For their new research published in the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday, Ofer Feinerman, from the Department of Physics of Complex Systems at the Weizmann Institute of Science, and colleagues tracked groups of longhorn crazy ants as the insects tried to transport bits of food towards their nest.
The researchers carefully took note of the position of each ant and found that most ants, regardless how their vision and antennae were blocked by the food item they carried, did not attempt to steer away the motion to any direction. Instead, the insects just lifted and carried the item to the way their neighbors are going.
How would the ants know which direction to go if they are not able to see or sense where their nest is? Unattached ants set the right path helping the horde of ants get to their intended destination.
The scout ant is aware which direction the nest was and once it realizes that the group is off course, it would make the change in the ants' course by grabbing the food and exert a strong pull to the right direction.
The other ants are aware that this stronger force is the one that they need to conform to so rather than resisting, they go along with it.
"If you look at this system it looks like the intelligence of knowing where to go and how to pass obstacles does not come from the big group," Feinerman said. "The big group just gets stuck at the big obstacle and they never pass it. The problem-solving abilities come from the single ant who knows which way to go to pass the obstacle."
The informed ant that took the lead though later loses this sense of direction and 10 to 20 seconds later would yield its role of providing the needed guidance to another ant with more updated information.
"Our findings show that efficient group-level processes can arise from transient amplification of individual-based knowledge," the researchers wrote.
