[katieHaylor (OP)]

Allen asks:

Do some insects/ other animals take short cuts when doing their job, or are they 100% efficient at their jobs? Eg. humans will nearly always find a quicker way of doing something.

Can you help?

[alancalverd]

All apes and many birds use tools to get food more easily. Cetaceans and some sharks collaborate  to herd their prey.

Humans just keep inventing more pointless things to do (like cricket,  Facebook and Twitter), devise expensive ways of doing them quicker or more often (batting gloves, tablets,wi-fi) then complain that their lives are ruined by them (except cricket - sole purpose of existence). Ants and dogs seem to have more fun than teenagers (except young cricketers). Try explaining to a Martian why anyone would want to make a cake that looks like a caterpillar. Or play "computer games". Or golf.

BIrds and butterflies are born knowing how to fly by the most efficient route they can find (butterfly meteorology is amazing) to get food. I spent years learning to fly a glider, where the object is to get back to where you started, by the longest possible route: even more fun than cricket, but completely pointless .