I loved this post. This is brilliant perspective not on different strategies animals employ to survive, but also how we take the idea of intelligence for granted. I loved what you did with honey bee and language. We have a honey bee lab here, headed by Axel Brockman, a part which is trying to understand the language of honeybee dance. I once had a curious question about it - say if I show a forager bee the location of food. It goes back and dances. But in the meantime I remove the food from this place, would this bee lose credibility in the colony? So in social structure are these insects smart enough to remember which individual gets more credible information.

I think intelligence needs to be defined more clearly. It is rather ability to find solution to novel problems and not just limited to writing a math test. I think you could covered that point in an interesting way here. Anyway, thanks for sharing this.