Ant Colony

insects · teamwork · nature's cities · super organized

The queen rules all. Every ant colony has one or more egg-laying queens whose only job is to produce thousands and thousands of babies. Without the queen, the colony cannot grow and eventually dies out.

Everyone has a job. Most ants in a colony are sterile females called workers who build tunnels, find food, care for babies, and defend the nest. Each ant knows exactly what to do without anyone telling it what to do.

Flying nuptial flights. Once a year, winged male and female ants fly out of the nest together to find mates from other colonies. After mating, the males die, but a few females survive and start brand new colonies of their own.

Eusocial supercity. An ant colony is eusocial, which means all the ants work together for the whole group instead of just for themselves, kind of like an underwater coral reef where every creature helps the others survive.

Evolved independently. Ants developed their teamwork style on their own, completely separate from other social insects like bees and wasps. Nature figured out the same brilliant system twice.