The nature of ants is well known to us from fairy tales and fables: this is a hardworking, intelligent and extremely prudent creature, always preoccupied with preparing for winter. However, scientists have found that the nature of ants can be very different. Some anthills may be filled with individuals prone to exploration and risk, while others are much less eager to expand.
Until recently, the very idea of personal character was inextricably linked with people. It was only in the last century that special characters began to be found in animals, and more and more “simple” ones: today we can confidently speak of a special character even in individual insects. And among cockroaches, some exhibit more aggressive behavior, while others tend to be cautious.
A recent study, French biologists put in a laboratory where they raised 27 colonies of Aphaenogaster senilis ants - both working individuals and queens, not familiar with the natural conditions of life - and compared the features of their search and exploratory behavior. Scientists meticulously counted each ant from each colony that went in search of food or to deliver it to the nest. They also tested the insects' resistance to stress by raising the outside temperature from 26 ° C to 60 ° C and observing that only a few continued to work at temperatures above 46 ° C.
Summarizing these data, the authors noticed a clear discrepancy in the nature of individual anthills. The inhabitants of some were more inclined to activity and risk, while others were distinguished by caution and extremely reluctant to master new spaces and living conditions. This character remained the same several months later, when the observations were repeated: some anthills showed active behavior, others proactive.
Then scientists decided to look at how different characters affect the ability of colonies to compete, forcing them to share a common territory for obtaining food. Tracking the reaction of ants to a meeting with rivals, they showed that (as one might expect) active anthills behave towards their neighbors much more aggressively and efficiently get food. However, the mortality rate of these ever-risk insects was higher, so that cautious neighbors did not lose too much in their overall efficiency.
One of the authors of the work adds that one of the common approaches to understanding the collective behavior of ants - the idea of an anthill as a "superorganism" - is still not very fair. Individual ants are still different organisms and are much less closely related than the cells in the body. Each ant has its own goals, problems and needs - but how perfectly they are able to find common goals, common problems and needs, turning into a single anthill, is perhaps worthy of surprise much more than their well-known industriousness.