Someone mentioned ant intelligence, and I have seen writers in fantasy and science fiction use insect models for a kind of "hive" brain. I was looking through some of my articles on insects (order Hymenoptera specifically, which is my favorite and which includes the insects that generally have this kind of hive arrangement). I found a neat article by Wufilia Gronenberg, and it is available online for free. Thought it might be of interest to some. Some ideas in here that will be of use to writers. Hopefully, the link is OK for this: http://eebweb.arizona.edu/faculty/dornhaus/courses/read_ECOL597S/AntBrainRev%20MyrmecolNews08.pdf
