Argentine Ant

Argentine ants demonstrate stigmergy - indirect coordination through environmental modifications - in their foraging behavior. When an ant discovers a food source, it returns to the nest while laying a pheromone trail. Other ants randomly exploring the environment are more likely to follow paths with higher pheromone concentrations. As more ants follow a trail to a food source, they reinforce the trail with additional pheromone, making it even more attractive to subsequent ants. This positive feedback loop creates an emergent property: the colony collectively identifies and exploits the richest food sources through a process that requires no central planning. Pheromone evaporation provides negative feedback, allowing the colony to adaptively track changing resource distributions.