Planet Ant

Ants are fascinating creatures - builders of extraordinary and complex societies. So how can a species, inferior to humans by so many measures, achieve such spectacular feats of co-ordinated power? How do they do it and what can they tell us about ourselves? This programme takes us inside a million strong ant colony, housed in a specially constructed glass nest, that allows us to see the inner workings of this most mysterious society, in a way never seen before. The latest filming techniques reveal in vivid detail the behaviour of individual ants, from queens to workers and soldiers, while radio frequency identification tagging builds up a unique picture of how they mobilise to achieve such complex feats. The programme discovers what happens when the queen is removed from the nest, investigates how ants can solve mathematical problems that defeat modern computers, and asks in what ways a study of ant behaviour could help us better organise our own societies.