Ants, math and Ferret.
Fromt the desk of Ferret/Slackpunch Christopher "Every ant counts in large amounts, eh? A lot of animals are pretty good at simple math, not just show-off horses and junked-out chimpanzees, and one of the most impressively unexpected number-crunchers of the animal kingdom is Cataglyphis fortis, an ant that lives in the Tunisian desert known for using higher maths in a way that makes me embarrassingly glad to have thumbs and a consolatory affinity for language. When a desert ant leaves its nest in search of food, its most crucial task is finding its way home. Most ants around the world can use one of two tricks for finding their way home: visual landmarks or scent trails. The windswept saltpans of Tunisia make it impossible to leave a scent trail, though, and the barren landscape doesn't provide much in the way of visual landmarks—an occasional rock or scrappy weed. Evolutionarily supplied with mathematical know-how, the desert ant is able to “path integrate,” meaning tha
