The NY Times has an interesting article on insect swams. Connection to economies should be obvious. But does being more intelligent than your average ant lead to more or less complicated group behavior?

From Ants to People, an Instinct to Swarm - New York Times

By studying army ants -- as well as birds, fish, locusts and other swarming animals -- Dr. Couzin and his colleagues are starting to discover simple rules that allow swarms to work so well. Those rules allow thousands of relatively simple animals to form a collective brain able to make decisions and move like a single organism.

Deciphering those rules is a big challenge, however, because the behavior of swarms emerges unpredictably from the actions of thousands or millions of individuals.

Looks like an economy to me. | Posted November 13, 2007 12:10 PM by John Irons