sphexish behavior in ants

From: Spike Jones (spike66@attglobal.net)
Date: Tue Sep 04 2001 - 22:38:50 MDT


I had placed something in my garbage can that ants found
irresistable and so they did the traditional antic thing and
formed a trail from their hill to the food. I carried my can
to the curb for collection, thereby interrupting their food-
gathering activities. An hour later I noticed something
interesting. The trail of ants was still there on the side of
the can. There was a roughly circular anty area on the
sidewalk about 4 cm in diameter, perhaps 100 ants. There
appeared to be no ants leaving the area.

I studied what was happening there. I watched and
estimated that an arbitrary line intersecting the ant trail
was crossed by about 10 ants per second in either direction.
The ants that were in the can when I move it crawled down
the side, reached the sidewalk, milled around for about
10 seconds, {perhaps wondering "whaaaat in the hill?"}
then evidently headed back the way she came.

After an hour, then four hours later, the ants on the
side of the can showed no evidence of slowing down
or getting lost: their ant-flux remained about 10/sec
and there remained about 100 ants on the sidewalk.
This went on for hours. I estimated the one-way
trip up or down the side took about 50 seconds.
So a round trip takes about 110 seconds plus
whatever time each ant spends inside the can. So
if I estimate about a minute inside the can, then it
would take about three minutes for an ant to get some
food, walk down the can, wander in confusion on the
sidewalk, turn around and go back. So they could
make perhaps 20 - 25 such round trips in an hour.

Since this went on for hours. Each of these ants walked
back and forth up and down that trash can probably
over a hundred times. They didn't learn. They simply
behaved in a sphexish manner, as described on page 360
in the Good Book by Hofstadter. Conclusion: ants are
really stupid. I haven't a clue what this story has to do
with extropianism, but my neighbors think Im some
kind of kook, outside with a flashlight watching ants
walk up and down my garbage can. spike



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:25 MDT