Are You As Smart As a Piss Ant?

     Pisants, also known as piss ants, originally referred to a type of European ant known as the wood ant. In the United States,the term piss ant may refer to any small ant that infests a home. 

     They prefer to build their nests in wooded areas where they use wood as their nesting material, mainly pine. The formic acid their bodies secrete makes their nests take on a distinctly urine-like odor. The same thing happens if you smash one of them...your fingers will smell like urine. 

     They are small, typically not much larger than one quarter of an inch long and can be black, brown, or reddish. Some varieties may even have a bluish-green, iridescent sheen. 

     In our homes ants are attracted to building materials and the foods we eat, especially sweets. Once your home is on their radar, they move in and are challenging to get rid of. They can cause damage and, also, carry bacteria, parasites and infectious diseases that can be transferable to humans. 

     They’re hard to get rid of because insect sprays kill them on contact, but the sprays won’t eliminate a whole colony. Also, over-the-counter products don’t work as well as they used to as more and more species are developing an immunity to pesticides. 

     You might think ants are not intelligent, but nothing could be further from the truth! They are one of the most intelligent and industrious insects in the world.

     Recent studies show that ants are outstanding navigators and highly social. Ants care about their colony and they can pass on knowledge from the elders to the young. 

     They even make their own medicine! They have been known to gather certain foods and certain types of fungus that can be used by their colony as antibiotics.

     Ants are excellent problem solvers and can readily adapt to new situations. They routinely accomplish tasks as a group to do jobs that a single ant could not do. 

     So what does all that have to do with chess? Probably every chess player has heard of the Knight’s Tour where you have to move a Knight to every square on the board only once. does all that have to do with chess? Probably every chess player has heard of the Knight’s Tour Old timers will remember George Koltanowsky was famous for performing it. Chess Life published an article on on the Knight’s Tour HERE

     Ants use a certain algorithm to forage for food and it can be used to solve many types of problems including the Knight’s Tour. Read more…