Ants suffer from cognitive overload

Just a reminder: ants suffer from cognitive overload.

“Individual ants made much worse decisions when faced with 8 options rather than 2 meaning that they experienced cognitive overload.”

To deal with this, they engaged in collective decision-making. The ants “place the burden of making complicated decisions on the backs of the entire colony, rather than on an individual ant.” A colony could choose a high-quality nest from many more options more effectively than individual ants, because each member of the colony assesses only a small part of portion of available sites, and then shares the information with the entire colony.

Just a reminder: no one here gets out alive, but in the meantime—you don’t have to do it on your own.