When we think of intelligent members of the animal kingdom, the creatures that spring immediately to mind are apes and monkeys. 一提起动物王国的聪明成员，我们首先想到的就是猿和猴子， But in fact the social lives of some members of the insect kingdom are sufficiently complex to suggest more than a hint of intelligence. 但事实上昆虫王国的群居动物证明智慧线索的复杂化。 Among these, the world of the ant has come in for considerable scrutiny lately, and the idea that ants demonstrate sparks of cognition has certainly not been rejected by those involved in these investigations. 在这其中，通过近期对于蚂蚁世界的详细调查，那些参与研究的人不再反对蚂蚁具备知识火花的想法。

Ants store food, repel attackers and use chemical signals to contact one another in case of attack. 蚂蚁储备粮食，反击侵略者，受攻击时会利用化学信号联系其他成员。 Such chemical communication can be compared to the human use of visual and auditory channels (as in religious chants, advertising images and jingle s, political slogans and martial music) to arouse and propagate moods and attitudes. 这些化学信号堪比人类的视觉和听觉系统（如宗教吟诵、广告形象和歌曲、政治口号、战争曲），用以激发和传播情绪和态度。 The biologist Lewis Thomas wrote, Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. 生物学家 Lewis Thomas 写道：“蚂蚁太像人类了，甚至到了令人沮丧的地步， They farm fungi, raise aphids* as livestock, launch armies to war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child lab our, exchange information ceaselessly. 他们播种真菌，像养家畜一样饲养蚜虫，发动部队作战，利用化学喷雾警告并迷惑敌人，捕获奴隶，从事儿童劳动，不断交换信息。 They do everything but watch television.' 他们除了不看电视什么都做。”

However, in ants there is no cultural transmission -everything must be encoded in the genes - whereas in humans the opposite is true. 然而蚂蚁世界没有文明传承。一切都仅仅编制在基因里——人类恰恰相反。 Only basic instincts are carried in the genes of a newborn baby, other skills being learned from others in the community as the child grows up. 新生儿基因里只有基本本能，其他技巧将伴随孩子成长过程中不断学习得来。 It may seem that this cultural continuity gives us a huge advantage over ants. 或许这种延续让我们远远优于蚂蚁。 They have never mastered fire nor progressed. 他们从不掌握生火和进步。 Their fungus farming and aphid herding crafts are sophisticated when compared to the agricultural skills of humans five thousand years ago but been totally overtaken by modern human agribusiness. 与五千年前人类的种植技术被现代人类农业综合企业制超过相比，他们的真菌种植和蚜虫饲养经久不衰。

Or have they? 是这样吗？ The farming methods of ants are at least sustainable. 至少蚂蚁的农业方式仍在继续。 They do not ruin environments or use enormous amounts of energy. 他们不破坏环境，不利用巨大能量。 Moreover, recent evidence suggests that the crop farming of ants may be more sophisticated and adaptable than was thought. 而且，近期的研究表明，蚂蚁的农业方式甚至比人们所想的更加精密和更具适应能力。

Ants were farmers fifty million years before humans were. 五百万年前，蚂蚁就是农夫，早于人类。 Ants can't digest the cellulose in leaves - but some fungi can. 蚂蚁无法消化树叶中的纤维质——但真菌可以。 They therefore cultivate these fungi in their nests, bringing them leaves to feed on, and then use them as a source of food. 因此，蚂蚁在洞穴里种植真菌，喂它们树叶，然后将它们作为食物源， Farmer ants secrete antibiotics to control other fungi that might ac t as 'weeds', and spread waste to fertilize the crop. 农夫蚂蚁分泌抗生素用以控制其他可以作为“种子”的真菌，并用废品肥沃庄稼。

It was once thought that the fungus that ants cultivate was a single type that they had propagated, essentially unchanged from the distant past. 曾一度认为，这种蚂蚁种植的真菌仅仅是一种类型，得以传播，从古到今没有本质改变。 Not so. 并非如此， Ulrich Mueller of Maryland and his colleagues genetically screened 8 62 different types of fungi taken from ants' nests. 玛里兰的 Ulrich Mueller 及其同事从蚂蚁洞穴里发现了 862 种不同的真菌类型。 These turned out to be highly diverse: it seems that ants are continually domesticating new species. 这些真菌被证明其实是纷繁多样的：看起来，蚂蚁不断驯化新品种。 Even more impressively, DNA analysis of the fungi suggests that the ants improve or modify the fungi by regularly swapping and sharing strains with neighbouring ant colonies. 更令人惊讶的是，对于真菌 DNA 的分析表明，蚂蚁通过与毗邻蚂蚁群进行定期交换和共同过滤来不断提升并改进真菌。

Whereas prehistoric man had no exposure to urban lifestyles - the forcing house of intelligence - the evidence suggests that ants have lived in urban settings for close on a hundred million years, developing and maintaining underground cities of specialised chambers and tunnels. 然而，史前人类没有接触过城市生活——智慧的速成学校——证据表明，蚂蚁以城市方式接近彼此已有一百万年的历史，发展扩大了具有特定职能的房间和隧道的地下城市。

When we survey Mexico City, Tokyo, Los Angeles, we are amazed at what has been accomplished by humans. 纵览墨西哥城、东京、洛杉矶，我们会惊讶于人类所取得的成就。 Yet Hoelldobler and Wilson's magnificent work for ant lovers, The Ants, describes a supercolony of the ant Formica yessensis on the Ishikari Coast of Hokkaido. 然而，Hoelldoble 和 Wilson 为蚂蚁爱好者所写的巨著，《蚂蚁》，描绘了一个位于 Hokkaido Ishikari 海岸的石狩红蚁的超级领地。 This 'megalopolis' was reported to be compose d of 360 million workers and a million queens living in 4, 500 interconnected nests a cross a territory of 2.7 square kilometres. 据报道，这个“特大市”由住在 4500 个相通洞穴的 36 亿蚁工、100 万个蚁后组成，跨 2.7 平方公里的领地。

Such enduring and intricately meshed levels of technical achievement outstrip by far anything achieved by our distant ancestors. 这种持久的、复杂的网层技术成就远远超过迄今为止我们祖先取得的任何成就。 We hail as masterpieces the cave paintings in southern France and elsewhere, dating back some 20,000 years. 我们以大师杰作对待的南部法国或其他地方的壁画，可追溯至 20,000 年前。 Ant societies existed in something like their present form more than seventy million years ago. 蚂蚁社会在700 万年前就以现在的形式存在。 Beside this, prehistoric ma n looks technologically primitive. 除此以外，史前人类一般都会比较原始。 Is this then some kind of intelligence, albeit of a different kind? 那么，尽管是不同种类的，这是一种智慧吗？

Research conducted at Oxford, Sussex and Zurich Universities has shown that when desert ants return from a foraging trip, they navigate by integrating bearings and distances, which they continuously update in their heads. 相关研究在牛津开展,Sussex 和 Zurich 大学表明，当沙漠蚂蚁从一次觅食之旅归来后，他们集合方向和距离作为导航，这些他们会不断在脑中进行更新。 They combine the evidence of visual landmarks with a mental library of local directions, all within a framework which is consulted and updated. 他们将看得到的标志与当地方向的脑部资料库相连，这些全部存在于不断进行查阅和更新的构架中。 So ants can learn too. 所以蚂蚁也会学习。

And in a twelve-year programmed of work, Ryabko and Reznikova have found evidence that ants can transmit very complex messages. 在一项为期十二年的研究工作中，Ryabko 和 Reznikova 已找到证据证明蚂蚁可以传递复杂信息。 Scouts who had located food in a maze returned to mobilise their foraging teams. 那些指出食物所在地的侦察兵蚂蚁会重新归队，并动员他们的觅食队。 They engaged in contact sessions, at the end of which the scout was removed in order to observe what her team might do. 他们忙于联络工作，最终侦察兵蚂蚁会移开并观察她的部队所为。 Often the foragers proceeded to the exact spot in the maze where the food had been. 大多数情况下，觅食队会准确到达食物所在的确切位置。 Elaborate precautions were taken to prevent the foraging team using odor clues. 他们会精耕细作，以防止觅食队用味道作为线索。 Discussion now centres on whether the route through the maze is communicated as a 'left-right' sequence of turns or as a ' compass bearing and distance ' message. 现在讨论主要集中在，蚂蚁交流迷宫路线是用“左右”反转的先后顺序还是“方向距离指南针”。

During the course of this exhaustive study, Reznikova has grown so attached to her laboratory ants that she feels she knows them as individuals - even without the paint spots used to mark them. 在这项令人筋疲力尽的研究过程中，Reznikova 已与她的实验蚂蚁建立起紧密联系，以至于她觉得她认识每只蚂蚁——即便没有那些作为标记蚂蚁的油料。 It's no surprise that Edward Wilson, in his essay, 'In the company of ants', advises readers who ask what to do with the ants in their kitchen to: 'Watch where you step. 难怪，Edward Wilson 在他的随笔《蚂蚁工厂》中建议那些请教他厨房里有蚂蚁的读者说，“小心落脚， Be careful of little lives.' 注意小生命。”