Have you ever looked at a large anthill in an unwanted area, and thought, "What a pain?" Perhaps these ants have invaded your house and are, at this very moment, scampering across your counter or lurking in your trash cans. Maybe you have gone to one of our beautiful parks and these little critters have already located your food stash. Sure, we may look at the outward characteristics and think to ourselves, “We need to eliminate these awful things!” Many of us don’t take the time to ponder the undeniable facts that would lead one to believe that these little creatures may be some of the smartest things on Earth.
You might be thinking to yourself that ants and humans do not have that much in common. To some extent, you are correct. The first human cities began to pop up around 9,500 years ago. These were very basic and did not involve advanced architecture. Ants have been building complex underground cities for over 120 million years. Wait, what? Needless to say, they have us beat by a little bit in that department. You might be thinking to yourself that these ant colonies are just holes in the ground. You would be wrong. They are actually very complex and well designed cities. Larger ant hills have to deal with a build-up of CO2 in their underground tunnels the same as humans would. Luckily for ants, they long ago discovered the concept of building ventilation tunnels into their colonies that allow CO2 to escape while bringing in fresh air. They funnel their waste into specific areas to be recycled, and they have a complex system of “highways” connecting important chambers. All of these things help to deal with colony populations that can range in the millions.
Now you might be thinking to yourself, well at least we were the first to use agriculture to our advantage. Well, it turns out that ants have us beat there as well. They began farming an estimated 50-65 million years ago. Certain types of ants use ant-fungus mutualism. This is a process where ants will actually cultivate fungus the way we grow crops for food. Leafcutter ants are one of the species that actively farms fungus. They will take leaf matter and bring it back to their “fungus gardens” to cultivate the fungus they use as food (I bet that vegetable garden of yours doesn’t seem as fancy as it used to). If you think this is interesting already, take into account that some ants will harvest tree sap with antifungal properties and disinfect their "feet" with it before entering their colony. This helps prevent the spread of disease. How do they know that?
Okay, so ants have us beat when it comes to first building advanced cities, farming, and understanding the use of antibacterial agents to ward off disease. At lease we were the first to domesticate other life forms for our benefit, right…right? Unfortunately, ants have us beat there as well. If you know what aphids are, chances are they have tried to ruin some of your favorite plants (poor tomatoes). You recognize the tale-tell sticky honeydew they secrete after sucking the life force from your garden (sometimes I believe they relish their ability to demoralize us in the process). Did you know that ants actually herd these little critters to do their own bidding? It turns 
out that ants love the sugary secretions of the aphid. They will actually carry aphids to new plants and protect them from predators. This is a process we refer to as herding. Let us think about this for a moment. Not only do ants realize that where these aphids are, there is an abundance of honeydew. Ants actually posses enough cognitive thought to determine that aphids produce the honeydew, and they could domesticate them to their advantage. Next time you get an aphid infestation, look closely to see if you have ants patrolling the plant.
out that ants love the sugary secretions of the aphid. They will actually carry aphids to new plants and protect them from predators. This is a process we refer to as herding. Let us think about this for a moment. Not only do ants realize that where these aphids are, there is an abundance of honeydew. Ants actually posses enough cognitive thought to determine that aphids produce the honeydew, and they could domesticate them to their advantage. Next time you get an aphid infestation, look closely to see if you have ants patrolling the plant.
You might be wondering if I plan on telling you that ants were the first on the moon. Well, I can’t state that with any certainty (although I’m guessing no), but they do have the ability to mobilize their society with a type of unrivaled precision. Consider for a moment that ants carry out organized warfare and adhere to specific battle plans. They have been waging wars for millions of years before the thought even occurred to us. During these wars, they even capture prisoners and force them to work in their colonies. This requires quite a bit of abstract logic on the ant’s parts. They see that these captured ants could help aid their colony more alive than dead.
Next to us, ants have the most advanced societies on Earth. They truly rule the insect kingdom with an iron fist. In some regards their societies run even smoother than ours, and to top it all off, they can lift 10-50 times their body weight. Not to mention, there are an estimated 1.5 million ants to every human. So the next time you are in one of our state parks, and you see a lone ant scampering across your campsite, think to yourself just how advanced these little insects are. You might also be thankful that they are so much smaller than you, or the world would work very differently. It may also be beneficial to hope they never organize as an entire population because I’m fairly certain that 1.5 million ants could overpower one human. Keep that in mind the next time you are deciding to do something that can make these things resent us.
