How should we judge the success of an animal? Philip S. Ward, a biologist at the University of California, Davis, offers what could be called the Picnic Test. “Have a picnic anywhere in the world,” he suggests. “Who would pick up the crumbs?”

Unless you happen to lay down your picnic blanket in Greenland, Antarctica, or a few remote islands in the Pacific, the answer will be ants. Ants have spread to just about every corner of earth’s dry land, colonizing virtually every imaginable ecosystem. By one rough estimate, there are 10,000 trillion ants on earth at any moment. In one study in a Brazilian rain forest, scientists discovered that the total mass of the ants that lived there was about four times greater than that of all the mammals, reptiles and amphibians combined.

Continue reading “Key to Ants’ Evolution May Have Started With a Wasp” →

We point to things without giving much thought to what a sophisticated act it really is. By simply extending a finger, we can let other people know we want to draw their attention to an object, and indicate which object it is.

As sophisticated as pointing may be, however, babies usually learn to do it by their first birthday. “If you don’t get that they’re drawing your attention to an object, they’ll get cross,” said Richard W. Byrne, a biologist at the University of St Andrews.

When scientists test other species, they find that pointing is a rare gift in the animal kingdom. Even our closest relatives, like chimpanzees, don’t seem to get the point of pointing.

Continue reading “Elephants Get the Point of Pointing, Study Shows” →