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And they discovered something very interesting: when it comes to walking, most of the ant's thinking and decision-making is not in its brain at all. It's distributed. It's in its legs.

It would seem that the ant works its way tentatively, and, observing where it fails, tries another place and succeeds.

The ant world is a tumult, a noisy world of pheromones being passed back and forth.

The ant is knowing and wise, but he doesn't know enough to take a vacation.

Viewed as a geometric figure, the ant's path is irregular, complex, and hard to describe.

The work on ants has profoundly affected the way I think about humans.

The whale is endangered, while the ant continues to do just fine.

Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labour, exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television.

Well, let me tell you, ants are the dominant insects. They make up as much as a quarter of the biomass of all insects in the world. They are the principal predators. They're the cemetery workers.

Ants have the most complicated social organization on earth next to humans.