Ants Perform Better As a Group Than Humans When Trying to Solve the ‘Piano Mover’s Puzzle’

Scientists at the Weizmann Institute, led by Professor Ofer Feinerman, conducted a very interesting experiment in which a group of humans competed against a nest of ants, specifically longhorn crazy ants, to complete real-life version of the “piano movers puzzle”.

In a new study, Prof. Ofer Feinerman’s team from the Weizmann Institute of Science, led by Tabea Dreyer, drew upon this unique trait to conduct a fascinating evolutionary competition: Who is better at maneuvering a large load through a maze?

This puzzle specifically tests the ability to navigate an oddly shaped object, from one location to another through an intricate constrained space, like a maze. While the humans performed better than ants as individuals, when it came to a group, the ants proved themselves to be better than humans as a team.

Not only did groups of ants perform better than individual ants, but in some cases they did better than humans. Groups of ants acted together in a calculated and strategic manner, exhibiting collective memory that helped them persist in a particular direction of motion and avoid repeated mistakes. Humans, on the contrary, failed to significantly improve their performance when acting in groups.

via b3ta