one nest out of this colony’s domain of a dozen trees, covering nearly eight hundred square meters of ground with nearly a half million ants in all. It had taken years of research and grant applications for her to get this system up and running-and to obtain such up-close and complete imagery of an entire weaver nest in real time. Of the superorganism in motion. And all to test whether her software model of weaver society was accurate. And, in turn, whether it could form the basis of a general model of Hymenoptera intelligence. That, in turn, might reveal secrets as to the very nature of intelligence itself.
McKinney turned on the tracking overlay and now saw glowing red dots hovering above individual weaver ants. She wanted to confirm that the computer vision software was accurately identifying individual weavers, and correctly distinguishing them from their much larger and darker siafu enemies. The enemy ants were denoted with blue dots by the tracking software. It seemed to be doing a fair job of telling the ants apart. McKinney would use the red dots from the data set to analyze weaver swarming attack. The idea was to capture the geometry of weaver movements, recording their collective action for analysis against her Myrmidon computer model. It would be interesting to see how her behavioral algorithms held up.
She smiled. Either way, this kicked ass. She was finally getting the raw data she needed to refine her model. To understand the processing power of insect societies. How intelligence could emerge from relatively unintelligent agents and amass into a collective mind.
With only a quarter million neurons in an individual weaver ant’s brain, a single ant “knew” very little- especially compared to the one hundred billion neurons in an average human brain. And yet, multiplied by a half million ants, the number of neurons in a colony began to approximate the raw, collective processing power of the human brain.
An ant colony exhibited nothing like a human’s sophistication, of course, but there definitely was a specialized intelligence. One that could plan and deliberately act. She’d seen that with other ant species like Atta laevigata, whose gigantic colonies excavated in Brazil extended twenty feet belowground with populations in the millions. These were cities able to regulate oxygen flow and temperature, able to farm fungi, dispose of waste.
But McKinney had especially seen evidence of collective intelligence in the nation-state-like domain of the weavers, where they maintained not one but dozens of hand-woven leaf nests in strategic locations throughout their territory and kept “livestock” in the form of mealy bugs (Cataenococcus hispidus). Outlying weaver nests were “barracks,” garrisoned to fight any intruders on the borders of their territory. If an enemy appeared, workers would summon reinforcements from these castles, and within minutes even intruders a thousand times the size of a single weaver would be surrounded, immobilized, torn apart, then ingested. But more intriguing still was the way weavers waged all-out preemptive wars of extermination against members of their own species. This was a behavior that on earth was exhibited only by the most complex societies of humans and of ants.
Was the collective processing of individual ant brains a primordial, measurable manifestation of a singularity-a collective mind that comes into being whenever information processing achieves critical mass? These and other questions fascinated McKinney-and with the Myrmidon computer model she was on her way to finding some answers.
There was a knock on her lab door.
“Busy. What is it?”
The door opened, and she could hear the sounds of daily activity in the research station outside. A familiar man’s voice spoke behind her. “Hey, I know this is none of my concern, but weren’t you going to take Adwele climbing up E-39?”
McKinney froze at her keyboard. “Oh, God…” She checked her watch.
“Relax. You said one o’clock, and it’s five till.”
McKinney swiveled in her office chair to face a handsome young entomologist in a stained bowling shirt standing in the doorway. “Jesus, I completely lost track of time.” She got up and started grabbing rope bags, packs, helmets, and other climbing gear from nearby metal shelving.
“Don’t mention it.”
She cast a glance his way. “Sorry, Haloren. Thanks for the heads-up.”
“I didn’t do it for you. I did it for the kid.” He gestured to the computer monitors. “See, ’cause I know how engrossed you can get with your vicious little friends. I’m the same way with dung beetles.”
She laughed. “No, you’re not.”
“If you’re suggesting I wouldn’t have chosen my line of study if I’d known I was going to be picking larvae out of monkey shit all day, you’d be wrong. It’s fucking fascinating. Come over to my cabin some night and I’ll show you.”
“Yeah, I’ll take a pass, thanks.” McKinney knew that most of the women researchers found Haloren’s sarcasm and self-deprecating humor charming. He was a few years younger than she, in his late twenties, and handsome in a rakish way, but also cocky and too self-amused. He mocked everything and, most infuriatingly, was usually right about things that didn’t rise to her notice.
“Who’s your friend?”
McKinney followed Haloren’s pointed finger to the open window next to her workstation. Sitting there on the branch of a colorful bougainvillaea was a large black raven, staring calmly back at them. “I didn’t even notice him.”
“Check it out, he’s tagged.”
McKinney could see a leg band and tiny transponder glittering in the sun. “Someone with funding.”
“The few. The lucky few.” Haloren leaned against her desk. “You know, the Arabs say ravens are the harbinger of omens.”
“Save it for your grad students.” McKinney leaned in to the speakerphone on her desk. “Guys, I’ll be back in a few hours. I had an appointment I forgot. Keep the video running and work out any glitches as best you can in the meantime.”
There was a chuckle on the other end. “No problem, Professor.”
Haloren gave her a look. “Those guys were listening the whole time?”
McKinney shrugged and hung up. She then leaned out to grab the window handle and took one last look at the oddly calm-looking raven, only a few feet away. She’d never thought of ravens as being this big. It was easily the size of a hawk, with a powerful, thick beak that looked like it could crush walnuts. Deep black, penetrating eyes, studying her. It had a tiny, wirelike feather hovering over its head, like a black filament rooted somewhere in the feathers of its neck.
It cocked its head at her with an eerie, deliberate focus.
She took a close look at the transponder on its leg and could see a grid of tiny metallic dots. McKinney looked back up at the raven, who was still watching her. “Hi, there. Where are you from?”
The bird cocked its head again, and then let out a perfect imitation of a chain saw.
McKinney laughed and looked to Haloren in surprise. “I didn’t know ravens could do sound effects.”
“Yeah, they’re great at mimicry. My thesis advisor kept a raven. Pain in the ass. Regularly trashed his office, and it hated my guts.” Haloren waved his hands. “Shoo! Shoo!”
“So maybe it’s the sound of loggers he’s imitating?”
“Probably.”
She turned back to face the raven, but it had taken off, leaving a wagging branch behind. “Why’d you scare him away?” She shut and locked the window.
Haloren held the office door open for her, but pointedly didn’t offer to help lug the forty pounds of climbing gear she was hauling. “After you…”
McKinney marched through the door. “Lock it.”
“Got it. Got it.”
In a few moments they were walking fast on the bustling dirt road running down the center of the research station. Local Maasai people in both Western clothes and traditional kanga nodded to them and smiled as they walked past. Haloren engaged them in Swahili, getting laughs out of several. Some of the Maasai were texting on cell phones, getting current cattle and mango market prices from town-an odd mix of the modern and the traditional.
Haloren kept pace easily alongside her, encumbered as she was.
“You mind helping with this gear?”
“I would, but I’m a firm believer in the equality of my female colleagues. Hey, speaking of that: Doesn’t
