Ants work together to dig intricate tunnel systems underground. Traffic engineers study ant colonies as mock-ups for learning how thousands of ants avoid creating traffic gridlocks while working in a restricted, jam-packed setting. It has been found that single workers follow counterintuitive guidelines to mine the beginning development of tunnel networks. After watching ants dig tunnels, it was discovered that 25-30 per cent of the ants did 70-75 per cent of all the work. But not due to laziness, individual ants when bumping into even a minor traffic jam on their way down to the tunnel, withdrew back up the tunnel without gathering any soil. It was also discovered that too many ants create a traffic jam, whereas too few ants cannot maintain a steady flow. A critical number of ants maximize traffic flow which turns out to be an optimized division of labour.
