A friend suggest this book: On Trails by Robert Moor. Over all, I’d give this a 3 out of 5. Interesting, at times insightful. Most interesting: externally stored knowledge (Trails) created by animals (and humans) have really long lasting a huge value. Also: ants are amazing.
I think my sister gave me this book quite a while ago. However, I ‘read’ the audiobook. Because is of this the chapters I refer to may not match the print book.
Chapters:
12: Long, Buddhist oriented meditation on wisdom. Highlights were Hanshan (poet) – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanshan_(poet), who I did not know much about.
11: tails of waking with a compulsive hiker: Native American dude (I should get his trail name) who has basically been through hiking for… 20 years? Seems to undergo fairly significant suffering (sleeps on the ground, no pad?) for the freedom of the hills. Seems content to die in the wild, like his relatives. Admirable, but probably a bit crazy.
Middle: Sheep – made it clear being a Sheppard is not easy. He seemed a bit panicked. Sheep seemed fine
Middle: Savannah – funny that the large animals have personalities (zebra are assholes)
Interesting: species aren’t isolated. The Zebra lost access to a migration destination, then they disappeared. Researches found them, hundreds of miles away, apparently following trails made by elephants
Early: Ants –
Ant trails are temporary: the pheromones are laid down _but evaporate_ which is a key feature. Basically, ants explore by going a different way, but vote by following the trail.
Ants seem to have a deep set of rules to help manage activity. Example: when passages get congested, rather than blindly cram in, some ants will just stop. These effectively become lane separators which increase throughput. Is this because of some giant control system? No, but somehow there is an ant rule: is shit going slowly? Just stop! But only a few ants.
This chapter is worth revisiting.
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