Natures wonders: ant rafts have set crews! (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, April 19, 2016, 13:36 (3138 days ago) @ David Turell

Thank you for another wonderful post in this always illuminating series.-QUOTE: "By working together, social insects, such as ants, achieve tasks that are beyond the reach of single individuals. A striking example is "self-assembly," a process in which ants link their bodies to form structures such as chains, ladders, walls or rafts."-I would suggest that this is not only a sign of remarkable intelligence, but may also echo the way intelligent cell communities cooperate to create new structures. 
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QUOTE: "In addition, they found the presence of brood, or immature members of the ant society, modified workers' position and raft shape. Surprisingly, they found workers' experience in the first rafting trial with brood influenced their behavior and raft shape in the subsequent trial without brood.
"They believe this is the first time memory has been demonstrated in so-called self-assemblages."-Clearly, then, the learners learn and at the same time the mature workers make adjustments - rather like the interchange between receptive teachers and receptive students. These assemblages are not fixed, even though the basic structure remains the same. 
***-David's comment: If they all know where to place themselves, it smells like instinct to me. It makes no sense they practiced their positions in advance of getting hit with a flood. By living in a flood prone area, I'm sure the instinct developed by necessity.-The practice would certainly have originated and developed by necessity, but there must have been a first time, just as there must have been a first chain, ladder, wall etc., and unless you wish to tell us that your God gave lessons to the originators of each structure and also pops in to tell them how to make adjustments (in order to provide the energy to produce and/or feed humans), I would suggest that the whole technology is much akin to the manner in which humans make and modify such structures - by using their intelligence.