The Wisdom of Ants

What humans can learn from social insects.

At this summer's International Union for the Study of Social Insects—July 30 through Aug. 4 in Washington, D.C. —almost 1,000 scientists gathered, as they do every four years, to report on what they'd found after, well, going to the ant (and the bee and the wasp and a half-dozen other orders). To be around so many like-minded social insect—studiers is a departure for this bunch (or rather, colony), who are accustomed to having to justify what they do for a living: When in mixed company, they can be overheard saying things like, "But ants represent 40 percent of the biomass in many forests" or "Without bees, agriculture would be nearly impossible."

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