In terms of individual smarts, ants are relatively inept, CBS News asserts, but collective intelligence counts for a lot, notes SFI's Deborah Gordon.
Ants, like bees, operate with “swarm intelligence” as a collective brain in their hills, in groups solving complex problems, says Gordon, who is an SFI Science Board member and External Professor and a behavioral ecologist at Stanford.
Watch the CBS Sunday Morning video (July 24, 2011)
Read the Global Animal article (July 2011)
Read a National Geographic article on swarm intelligence (July 2007)