The Empathy of Ants
Understanding the Emotional Landscape of Insects
Since ancient times, ants have been part of universal literature citing how they conduct themselves and what man can learn from it. From traditional fables to kings, to prophets, all have used an ant as inspiration. In the book of Proverbs, which is ascribed to Solomon (King in Judaism and Christianity, Prophet in Islam) it is written.
“Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard?” — Proverbs 6:6–9
Ants show remarkable complexity and sophistication. They exhibit rigorous work ethic, adaptability, social structures, and farming (yes, just like humans).
Emerging 170 million years ago alongside dinosaurs, their resilience allowed them to survive the big dinosaur extinction and many other global catastrophes. Ant societies are made up of hierarchical structures with specific duties for each individual. This ensures that each ant plays a role in the collective welfare of society.
With no ears, ants do their communicate with each other through sensing with their antennas following trails of a chemical called pheromones. Ant muscle fibers are relatively thick as compared to other animals, which gives them super strength, allowing them to lift 10–50 times more than their body weight. That’s like a 90 kg man lifting a 1500 kg small car above his head.
Do Insects feel emotions?
Feelings are an attribute largely associated with vertebrates. Emotions like love, hate, and pain can be observed in vertebrates but are difficult to spot in insects.
Charles Darvin in his book “The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals” writes that insects “express anger, terror, jealousy and love.” This theory had no hard evidence to back it up. Now 150 years later after its formulation, researchers can finally deduce from experiments that insects do show cognitive, behavioural, and physiological mechanisms that underlie emotions.
Researchers trained a swarm of bees with a specific smell giving sugar as a reward, and then the bees were rewarded with an unpleasant liquid. The bees were then divided into two groups. One group was shaken, which is a sensation bees don’t like, as it resembles an attack by a predator, and the other group was left to enjoy the sweet drink.
Then the bees were exposed to new smells. Those who had a good time showed more interest in receiving the sugary drink. The ones who were shaken showed less interest, as they had become cynical.
It was concluded that bees were not feeling some new form of pessimism, but a feeling not so different from our own, just like what we feel when we are exasperated. The bee’s brains showed lower levels of dopamine and serotonin. Source
Understanding Empathy
Empathy is the ability to feel and understand the emotions of others and respond with care and compassion. Empathy can trigger pro-social behaviours. Pro-social behaviours are actions that benefit others. Source
If “Survival of The Fittest” is the only cause of human existence, then we are programmed just to dominate without any ability to respond to others suffering.
Exploring the evolutionary impact of such behaviour on the sustainability of an insect colony is an interesting view to look at the mechanisms adopted to thrive in an environment.
Do Ants possess Empathy?
When termite-hunting ant Megaponera Analis are hurt their counterparts take them back to the colony and treat their wounds. The treatment is done by licking and grooming the wound in the first three hours of the injury.
They seem to give priority treatment to infected wounds then sterile wounds by using antimicrobials at the targeted area. While hunting termites, the risk of injury is too high and this cooperative behaviour reduces the combat mortality rate.
The compounds dimethyl disulfide and dimethyl trisulfide which are present in the mandibular gland reservoirs were observed to be the triggers that force such behaviours.
This behaviour results in a larger colony size of 28.7%. Implementing such practices ensures that the ant colony maintains its sustainability.
In humans, such behaviour is categorised as empathy. But these chemically induced distinctive triggering mechanisms in ants cannot be described as empathy but simply a procedure that ensures the survival of the society. Source
In case such behaviour is deemed as empathy then such practices are a vital component for the continuation of any social species.
