It was this sultry monsoon afternoon in my hometown. Our small courtyard was dotted with shallow puddles, each one shining as if the sky had spilled tiny mirrors on the ground. A curious procession was forming along the edge. A line of ants, each carrying a crumb far larger than itself. The water had blocked their usual route, but the line had already chosen a detour as if Google Maps had shown them a faster route. They moved without hesitation, in perfect synchrony. And in the kitchen too, an ambush party had assembled as if lying in wait for some human carelessness - mine this time. Sugar crystals lay scattered in the aftermath of my making tea. Within minutes, this group of ants had discovered it. They rushed forward, each gripping a morsel as big as their head, and began their own procession away from the spill, vanishing into the small crevice at the door entrance. To others, they may have been just ants. But for me that day, the one who stopped and watched closely, they were a spectacle of quiet genius. It stayed with me.
This morning I received a WhatsApp forward: “Did you know ants break seeds into pieces before storing them? And coriander seeds into four pieces, because they know it stops germination?” It is the sort of message that makes you smile, share, and then wonder if it’s true - the sheer mix of awe and mystery.
Two kind of unrelated incidents but it started a thought. How much of it was fact, and how much was a beautiful story we wanted to believe? That curiosity became the start of this piece.
The Humble Genius of Ants
Ants are among the most successful creatures on Earth. Over 12,000 species have evolved to fill nearly every corner of our ecology. Here is some information I found out about them:
Some are farmers, cultivating fungus underground on leaf cuttings; Weaver Ants are architects, stitching together leafy nests using silk from their larvae; while otheres excavate elaborate underground galleries with specialized chambers for breeding, food storage and fungus gardens. Still others are engineers, the Army Ants, who form living bridges or ladders by linking their bodies to connect their trails while in search for food. And some, like Harvester ants, are meticulous hoarders, collecting seeds that will feed the colony through the lean months. We also have sailors, the Fire ants that build rafts to survive floods, by clinging together to form waterproof floating rafts that keep the queen and brood safe during floods. The raft is robust, can trap air, and even self-rights. Leaf-cutter ants cut plant material and carry it back to underground gardens where they cultivate a fungal farm that they eat. They tend the fungus, remove contaminants, and use antimicrobial bacteria to protect the garden. This is agriculture - a striking parallel to our own farming, evolved long before us.
One extraordinary fact, I learnt while reading about them is that certain ants “farm” aphids which are small, soft-bodied insects that feed on plant sap. The ants tend to aphids much like a herdsman tends cattle, protecting them from predators, moving them to fresh feeding spots, and collecting honeydew, a sweet liquid aphids excrete. Aphids themselves are not pests as humans have designated them, but living, cultivated livestock in the ant economy. This relationship is an example of symbiotic mutualism between two very different species, shaped by millions of years of evolution.
Instinct or Intelligence?
Now having read all this, I had some questions to myself. When we talk about ants, we call it Instinct, and when scientists talk about ants, they speak of “collective intelligence” — a form of problem‑solving that emerges when many individuals follow simple rules. Ants follow pheromone trails, react to local signals, and adjust behaviour based on traffic and obstacles. They even navigate using the sun and magnetic fields. These rules produce astonishing results: living bridges, rafts to survive floods, intricate underground nests.
An ant adapts quickly to new conditions and teaches others through behaviour. For example a concept called tandem running, where one ant leads another to a food source is a form of teaching. allowing the follower to learn the route. This is real, intentional teaching behaviour. It shows ants are capable of social learning. That’s a form of intelligence, and it happens on a scale humans can rarely match — thousands of learners at once.
Whether it is conscious planning or instinct evolved over time, the result is behaviour so complex that it can feel like magic. Ants may not “think” like we do but they navigate, adapt, teach, farm, and organise in ways that challenge our definitions of intelligence. They “map” their world through shared chemical signals, creating knowledge that guides the entire colony.
But is this instinct or intelligence?
Fun Facts About Ants
- Ants have existed for over 100 million years — outliving dinosaurs.
- The combined weight of all ants on Earth may equal or even surpass the weight of all humans.
- They can carry up to 50 times their body weight which is equivalent of you lifting a small car.
- Ants have no ears — they “hear” through vibrations in their legs.
- They are farmers, architects, soldiers, engineers, and little philosophers rolled into one.
Conversation with an intelligent and Talkative Ant
I sometimes imagine what an ant might say if it could speak to us:
“We don’t march in lines to impress you. And we don’t break queues the way you do either. We walk in lines because it works for us. We don’t need traffic lights or police and Google Maps, we don’t honk in jams and our bridges are built without architects. You call us instinct-driven; we call you ego-driven. You laugh at us for being small; we laugh at you for being many and yet so divided. We don’t have parliaments, yet our colonies thrive. We call it intelligence. We also call it survival or living our life. You call it whatever you want. Maybe, instead of stepping on us, you could step back and watch, what else we could do.”
The Mystery Remains
The WhatsApp message remains an enigma. I tried checking. It is partly true. There is no peer‑reviewed proof that ants deliberately quarter coriander seeds to stop germination but it is known that ants eat the nutrient-rich part (the elaiosome as it is called) and discard or damage the seed in ways that prevent germination. However certain ants damage seeds, which can sometimes promote germination rather than stop it. Seed predation and storage by ants is very well known and researched.
These stories endure because it touches a deep part of our psyche , the human desire to glimpse a hidden order in nature. Whether true or myth, it is a reminder of how much we still don’t know.
Humans like to think we understand the world. Ants quietly remind us we don’t and perhaps never will. They live in ways we barely grasp, guided by instincts (or intelligence) we cannot fully decode. And in their persistence, they offer a lesson worth remembering- the extraordinary often hides in the smallest of ordinary things.
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References for further reading:
• Reid, C.R., Lutz, M.J., Powell, S., Kao, A.B., Couzin, I.D., Garnier, S. (2015). Army ants dynamically adjust living bridges in response to a cost–benefit trade-off. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(49), 15113–15118.
• Mlot, N.J., Tovey, C.A., Hu, D.L. (2011). Fire ants self‑assemble into waterproof rafts to survive floods. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(19), 7669–7673.
• Hughes, W.O.H., Andersen, A.N., et al. (2010). Ant‑fungus mutualism. Current Biology, 20(17), R809–R812.
• Hölldobler, B., Wilson, E.O. (1990). The Ants. Harvard University Press.
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