Longhorn crazy ants, named for their jerky and erratic movements, may seem chaotic, but they are actually very cooperative and efficient at retrieving food. A new study shows that through intelligence of the swarm, worker ants are able to anticipate obstacles and clear them from a path so other ants can more easily move bulky pieces of food, improving foraging outcomes for the whole colony.

While human brains have around 86 billion neurons, ant brains, about the size of a poppy seed, have no more than a million neurons. Through a series of experiments, researchers from Switzerland and Israel learned how “swarm intelligence” is able to collectively solve problems, including efficient foraging.

Ehud Fonio, lead author of the study and a research fellow at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, said in a press release that it is the first documented case of ants showing “forward-looking behavior” as they cooperated transporting food. He said the longhorn crazy ant (Paratrechina longicornis) workers have the ability to “clear obstacles from a path before they become a problem — anticipating where a large food item will need to go and preparing the way in advance.”

The authors were inspired to study the behavior after seeing longhorn crazy ant workers move gravel pebbles out of the way for a group of workers transporting a large insect.

The researchers conducted 83 experiments at the institute’s campus, using cat food pellets, which the ants liked, as prey and plastic beads as obstacles. They found that the ants only cleared the path if it was really necessary or when the food item was big. They cleared less when the food was in crumbs and easily moved by individual ants.

Clearing the path first was a significant time saver; if the path was not first cleared, it took the ants 18 times longer to get around the obstacles.

“Humans think ahead by imagining future events in their minds; ants don’t do that,” Ofer Feinerman, a professor at the Weizmann Institute, said in the statement.

Ants first inform the swarm of the presence of food by depositing tiny droplets of pheromone on the ground as they run erratically. The other ants are prompted to clear the way by detecting the pheromones from the foragers.

“Individual workers don’t understand the situation at all. This intelligent behavior happens at the level of the colony, not the individual. Each ant follows simple cues – like fresh scent marks left by others – without needing to understand the bigger picture, yet together they create a smart, goal-directed outcome,” Danielle Mersch, a co-author of the study and former postdoctoral researcher at the Weizmann Institute, said in the press statement.

“These ants thus provide us an analogy to brains, where from the activity of the relatively simple computational units, namely neurons, some high cognition capabilities miraculously emerge,” Feinerman said.

Banner image of a longhorn crazy ant by Ajay Narendra via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

WASHINGTON (AP) — A plan to sell more than 3,200 square miles of federal lands has been ruled out of Republicans’ big tax and spending cut bill after the Senate parliamentarian determined the proposal by Senate Energy Chairman Mike Lee would violate the chamber’s rules. The Utah Republican has proposed selling public lands in the West to states or other entities for use as housing or infrastructure. The plan would revive a longtime ambition of Western conservatives to cede lands to local control after a similar proposal failed in the House earlier this year. The plan received a mixed reception Monday from the governors of Western states but has been denounced by environmental advocates as a betrayal of public trust.

Banner image: Wrangler Doug Washburn, of Crested Butte, Colo. overlooks aspen trees with their autumn colors, near Jacks Cabin in the Slate River Valley near Crested Butte, Colo. while gathering the Spann cattle from the U.S. National Forest lands, Oct. 5, 2007. (AP Photo/Nathan Bilow, File)

Reporting by Matthew Daly, Associated Press

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries.

In a packed event held in Palo Alto, California, at the end of SF Climate Week in April, Willie Shubert, the vice president of programs and executive editor at Mongabay, shared a compelling example of how Mongabay’s journalism is making a real-world impact.

He described how Mongabay’s consistent, beat-focused coverage helped prevent the deforestation of 535,000 hectares (1.32 million acres) of Amazon Rainforest in Suriname — an area equivalent to more than 15% of global annual primary tropical forest loss.

For years, Mongabay reporters had tracked the expansion of Mennonite agricultural communities across Latin America, using satellite imagery, field research and on-the-ground verification. By treating incremental developments — such as new bridges into areas adjacent to protected areas zones — as newsworthy early-warning signs, our journalists built a network of trusted sources and strong relationships with local communities.

This trust paid off when a confidential source leaked a secret agreement to convert vast areas of rainforest for new agricultural settlements for Mennonite colonists. Mongabay broke the story in December 2023 with satellite analysis from the nonprofit Amazon Conservation. By January, lawmakers, civil society groups and Indigenous communities mounted an outcry. The pilot project was cancelled soon after, and the larger initiative was halted by court injunction.

Shubert emphasized that this result wasn’t the product of a single investigation, but of daily, consistent journalism — showing how long-term commitment to covering environmental beats can shape real outcomes for forests, communities and the planet.

It’s a powerful reminder: timely, accurate  journalism doesn’t just inform — it inspires people to action.

Banner image: Rainforest in Suriname. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

Often hidden from view, fungi are critical part of our ecosystems. Some can be eaten as mushrooms; others help trees and forests thrive. But that’s not all: they’re also helping us create low-cost, sustainable housing materials and additional income for farmers, says Gabriela D’Elia, director of the Fungal Diversity Survey and a fungi enthusiast, in a recent Mongabay video.

“Fungi are showing us new ways to live in allyship with the planet,” D’Elia says.

In an episode of Mongabay’s video series “Against All Odds,” which highlights the latest environment trends and solutions through interviews with experts, D’Elia gives us a breakdown of the different kinds of solutions that fungi offer to humans.

Take oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus), for example. In Namibia, a project called BioHab uses them to support food security, livelihoods and housing. The project members start by clearing Acacia mellifera, or blackthorn bush, which has encroached upon the country’s savannas. This serves two purposes: Blackthorn is “a fantastic substrate” to grow mushrooms on, D’Elia says, and harvesting the shrub allows native grassland to grow and feed cattle and antelope.

Meanwhile, the cultivated oyster mushrooms help farmers earn a living, while the waste from their cultivation is pressed, baked and turned into dense blocks that can be used as building materials.

Another company, Evocative, uses a mushroom called artist’s conk (Ganoderma applanatum) to create “myco-materials,” or materials made in the lab using the mycelium of the fungus. Mycelium functions similarly to a plant’s roots, forming a web of thin, interlocking threads called hyphae. These myco-materials are sustainable and can possibly replace leather, plastic and other packaging materials, D’Elia says. “Myco-materials are really going to change how industries can become sustainable and have much less toxic waste generation.”

As for giant garden mushrooms (Stropharia rugosoannulata), studies show how it can help filter antibiotic-resistant bacteria living in waterways and wetlands, D’Elia says. “It’s very important to have clean and clear waterways, or else the bacteria goes into our water supply and affects nature and people.”

D’Elia also points out the role of porcini mushrooms (Boletus edulis), which live in mutualistic relationship with tree roots. The fungus gives the tree roots water and nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen, while the tree gives the fungus sugars in return.

Such close relationships with mushrooms help trees and forests survive illnesses, bug infestations and stressors such as fluctuating temperatures, D’Elia says.

“These examples are all very different, but they demonstrate one thing, which is how fungi are so essential for the resiliency of our planet,” D’Elia adds.

Watch the video “Fungi are our climate allies” here.

Banner image of Gabriela D’Elia, director of the Fungal Diversity Survey and fungi enthusiast. Image © Carmen Hilbert.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The Trump administration plans to rescind a nearly quarter-century-old rule that blocked logging on national forest lands. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Monday that the 2001 roadless rule from the last days of the Clinton administration impeded road construction and timber production that would have reduced the risk of major wildfires. The USDA says the rule affects 30% of national forest lands nationwide. Environmental groups criticize the proposed change, calling it an attack on the air we breathe, water we drink, and habitat for wildlife.

Reporting by Morgan Lee And Becky Bohrer, Associated Press.

Banner image: Hoh rainforest, U.S.. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay

In the forests of Vidarbha, where he spent most of his adult life, Maruti Chitampalli did not walk so much as listen. While others mapped territory, he absorbed language—of birds, of trees, of the people who lived among them. Over four decades as a forest officer in Maharashtra, he moved not as a bureaucrat but as a student, learning from former hunters, Adivasi elders, and the long silences of the jungle. To them he owed his real education. The theory he had picked up in the Coimbatore Forest College—on timber yield and tree girth—was soon rendered secondary.

He rose to become Deputy Chief Conservator of Forests, but it was his work outside of formal duties that left a deeper mark. He helped shape protected areas such as Karnala Bird Sanctuary, Nagzira Wildlife Sanctuary, and the Melghat Tiger Reserve, and designed orphanages for displaced wildlife. Yet his most lasting achievement may have been as a communicator of the wild to those who would never step into it.

He wrote 25 books in Marathi—some factual, some impressionistic, some encyclopedic. His first, Pakshi Jaay Digantara (“The Birds Migrate Beyond the Horizon”), published in 1981, was an immediate success. His later works—Pakshi Kosh (on birds), Prani Kosh (on animals), and the unfinished Matsya Kosh (on fish)—made scientific knowledge accessible in local idioms, often borrowing from tribal dialects. He introduced new terms to the Marathi language, blending folk knowledge and field observation with philological care.

Chitampalli’s commitment to language was methodical. When he realized he could not understand the Sanskrit and scientific texts he needed, he enrolled in language classes—first Sanskrit, then others. He kept to a monkish discipline: waking at 3am to write, even in old age, and filling diaries with observations drawn from campfires and canopy walks.

His admirers called him Aranya Rishi, the forest sage. But unlike the mythical seers of Hindu lore, Chitampalli made no claims to spiritual insight. His knowledge was built from patience, repetition, and a deep respect for what he called the “minute details” of the natural world. He believed diary-keeping to be a moral obligation for foresters—an ethic largely absent, he lamented, among newer generations.

Though he received the Padma Shri just months before his death, recognition came late. He presided over the Marathi Sahitya Sammelan in 2006, rare for someone from the forestry profession. And while his books are required reading in Maharashtra’s universities and schools, few were ever translated. That bothered him. The forest, he felt, belonged to all—and so should the stories it held.

He returned to Solapur, his birthplace, shortly before his death. From there, too frail to roam, he continued writing from memory and notes. “My readers and various organizations,” he said, “are my successors.” He was not being humble. He meant that the work of listening—and of passing on what is heard—is never truly finished.

Mongabay-India Obituary

Header: Chitampalli. Screenshot from Wildlife of Vidarbha