This article is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Carla Helfferich is a science writer at the Institute.
Ants are hard to like.
Yet, they are also capable of the most fascinating behavior, complex activities that seem little short of incredible for tiny animals that are hardly more than armor-plated reflexes. One of the most mind-boggling things I've ever learned was that some ants keep aphids the way dairy farmers keep cows. The mind was very young at the time, and easily boggled, but it was an astounding fact. If ants were thoughtful creatures, aphid ranching would be logical behavior. But ants don't reason.