Not so dumb

Students of ants, wasps, hornets, termites and bees have for more than a century realised that the intricately interlocking teamwork of these insect builders deserves some more respectful characterisation than ‘blind instinct’. Moreover, in certain mammals, as seen in the dams and dens of beavers, the leaps of engineering insight would do credit to human designers.

To explain their feats requires us to credit animals with the ability mentally to map sense-data to objects and processes in the outside world. In some cases the animal first has to recognise the potential of materials and tools, and then to envisage and maintain a sequence of goals so as to determine how the tools are to be manipulated.

Beyond this lies abstract reasoning, concept formation, insight and language. Until recently these propensities were regarded as strictly the preserve of humans. James and Carol Gould’s new book leaves such exceptionalism in the dust.

With the possible exception of the African Grey Parrot, we cannot teach animals to bare their minds by addressing us in their own language. A safer plan is to note carefully both what they do and the surrounding circumstances. The authors of Animal Architects begin with constructions made from silk by caterpillars, spiders and other arthropods. An immediate question arises. Can an animal repair its own construction after damage? For this, there must be some model stored in its nervous system of what the finished construction is supposed to be like.

Working in the dark, the orb-spinning spider proceeds through a succession of critical phases. She begins with the first three anchor lines of what are to become the spokes of a wheel-like construction. Across these are laid spiral guide-lines as markers for the final tightly spaced spiral of sticky catching threads.