in defense of the trail
the ants take no prisoners but even an
innocuous looking
insect can be surprisingly dangerous
the soil millipede is killed quickly but
the soldiers highly sensitive antennae
immediately reveal that it’s poisonous
the message soon reaches nearby ants
they know exactly what to do
they gather lumps of mud and bury the
problem
with the millipede out of harm’s way the
trail can safely continue its journey
but more dangers await the trailblazers
a praying mantis plucks unsuspecting
ants from the column
he seems to have the upper hand but the
ants he kills
send out a dying message reacting to
this pheromone
reinforcements arrive
the mantis is a deadly predator but the
ants know exactly what they’re dealing
with
one soldier grabs the mantis jaws
stopping it from doing any more damage
other ants swarm over the mantis
butchering it with surgical precision
the mantis fate is sealed by a clinical
decapitation
[Music]
the eggs and pupae are taken into the
new nest
here they’re safe the millions of
interlocking ants that make up the nest
superstructure
create an impenetrable barrier
[Music]
only from the outside is it possible to
get an idea
of the nest’s huge scale
[Music]
literally millions of individuals form a
nervous network
that communicates using pheromones
[Music]
as ants pass messages to each other they
effectively act like brain cells
through the millions of interconnections
they arrive at a decision
that works for the benefit of the colony
[Music]
like human brain cells individual ants
are not intelligent
but the links between them create a mind
an ant
super brain
deep inside is the queen
her role is to replenish the colony by
laying two million eggs a month
[Music]
she is merely an egg-laying machine
under the collective command of all the
ants that make up the mind of the hive
the ants create a different kind of
intelligence a brain that exists
outside any single body
