The metaheuristic called the ant colony method has been inspired by entomology, the science of insect behavior. An interesting observation is that ants are apparently capable of solving what we would call optimization problems, such as finding a short path between the nest and a source of food. This result will be discussed in detail in Section 5.2. The ants’ ability to collectively find optimal or nearly optimal solutions for their development and survival is witnessed by their biomass, which is estimated to be similar to that of humans.