Sat 06 Dec ∞ Permalink

What is a superorganism, anyway?

Is ant society as complex as human society?  Are ants sophisticated in the ways we consider humans to be?  So supposes The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies, by Bert Holldobler and E.O. Wilson, recently reviewed in Slate:

In an advanced ant city, thousands of individuals work closely together to create a functioning colony in which there is a balance of cooperation and conflict. Some ant societies feature spectacular architecture and climate control. The most remarkable ant species have agriculture: They farm fungus and even domesticate other insects as livestock. In fact, at its height, ant civilization is remarkably like ours. A key contrast is that their society emerges from the hard-wired decision-making of thousands of efficient little biological robots, whereas ours is, at least partly, conscious and intentional. Despite this seemingly massive difference, it appears you can go a long way without a mind.

I wonder how the authors unwind the ants-as-livestock-farmers thread here.  The reviewer seems to think that livestock farming is a sign of incredible sophistication, and perhaps it could be, but I doubt there is an ant equivalent to modern-day farming practices that humans enact.