Are ants intelligent?

[harvesterant]

Most people do not consider ants to be reasonable creatures, but most people know little about ants. As all of the people here have an interest in ants and therefore know more about them, do the members of the AntsCanada ants forum think that ants are intelligent?

I do not necessarily mean that every individual ant is intelligent, but are ants intelligent as a group, to what extent is the superorganism of the ant colony intelligent?

[DontSquishTheAnt]

What determines intelligence?

[harvesterant]

Nice point. I am talking about the ability to think and make decisions. Which of these ranks does an ant colony fit best?

[DontSquishTheAnt]

For other things, I would put them at around the average mammal. Ants can teach eachother new skills, remember things, pass on their memories (in the form of teaching), and communicate effectively. While those all sound fairly advanced for the average mammal, the average mammal doesn't have any use for most of them. As for thinking, it is impossible to know whether or not animals think (and thus how well they think) unless they can talk to us. Unfortunately, this isn't Disney Land, so I don't know if that'll ever happen.