Using Ideas and Methods of Information Theory in Analyzing the Flexibility of the Language of Ants and Their Aptitude to Add and Subtract Small Numbers

During experiments, ants had to transmit information on the number of one of 40 “branches” with a feeding-tray in order to get food. However, the feeding-tray appeared considerably more often on two previously chosen branches than on all the others. It turned out that ants, first, could reconstruct their communication system when it was necessary to coordinate message lengths with the frequency of their occurrence, and second, could add and subtract small numbers while transmitting information about the feeding-tray number.