“Wasted”? They’re literally figuring out how the world around us works!
If you ever want to do anything socially unacceptable, just say it’s for science.
Research for the sake of research is how we make discoveries we never thought possible.
The best discoveries are the ones that start with somebody going, “Huh, that’s weird…”
I’m not sure… ants walk really far. Think of how long it takes us to get human children to the point where they can count to 1000. Do ants just hatch with a sense of numbers?
I don’t see why not. Storing a count is not so complex and the animal kingdom is filled with impressive (to our perception) mental feats* (like the dedicated neurones for each octopus tentacles).
Ironically, I find the act of following a pheromone trail counting steps way simpler than them having detailed mappings of their surroundings.
Edit: fears -> feats
I’m wondering if the “counting” could be derived from a form of proprioception rather than maintaining an active count. Distance just gets scaled and thrown off by longer legs.
