3 ms·
In my experience social insects have much more individuality than most people believe. I kept ants for a while and it was shocking to me how each of them has it
by ivanhoe 8y ago
In my experience social insects have much more individuality than most people believe. I kept ants for a while and it was shocking to me how each of them has it's own, unique patterns of behavior. Some like to wander far outside, some prefer to stay close to the entrance. Some are more aggressive, some less. They react to danger and feeding differently, some are easily crazed out, some stay calm. It's hard to see this because they all look very similar and there's a lot of them, but with time you learn to recognize some, and then it becomes obvious that they totally have their own personalities.
- pavel_lishin 8y agoIs it possible that you can't tell them apart, and that you just assume that all the ants that "craze out" are the ants you previously saw crazing out?
- ivanhoe 8y agono, some of them are recognizable, have a specific discoloration, or a leg or an antenna missing or something like that's unique about them. My colony was small, a few hundreds ants, and I knew how to tell apart maybe about a dozen of them, enough to notice that not all of them behave identically.