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Ants
Ants are social, colony-building insects who live in self-organized groups. Their perceptive spectrum is limited to various smells and a good sense of feel. The individual ants themselves are not capable of complex thinking. There are also no superants who delegate knowledge. The special role of the queen is limited to laying eggs. Why do ant colonies act complexly and intelligently as a whole then? "Single ants aren't smart. Ant colonies are." This effect is called "swarm intelligence": individuals follow simple rules to which complex behavior adds up. For example: there are two routes from the colony to food, a long one and a short one. None of the ants know which way is better and why, they choose the route by chance at first. The ants who choose the shorter route, however, walk back and forth between the colony and the food more often in the same period of time and thus leave more pheromone traces on the shorter path. This scent message signalizes to the other ants that this is the optimum route.
q.v.: Swarm Intelligence Metaphysics
