Ants coordinate highly complex foraging and traffic systems without any leaders, relying entirely on local interactions and chemical cues. Pheromone trails encode information about distance, food ...

This behavior has inspired algorithms used in computer science and logistics, often called ant colony optimization. These algorithms help solve problems like routing delivery trucks, scheduling ...

Rove beetles cloak themselves in ant pheromones to sneak into the insects’ nests for protection. But in an odd catch-22, that makes them forever reliant on their hosts ...

A single queen in the tropics; large colonies in deserts; workers with uniform morphology in temperate regions; ant social structures vary according to environmental conditions. This is shown, for the ...

Indicator species are living organisms that tell us that something has changed or is going to change in their environment. They can be easily observed, and studying them is considered a cost-effective ...