Do organisms form towns and cities or other settlements and economies in any way analagous to humans?
from cheese_greater@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca on 06 Nov 14:14
https://lemmy.world/post/21697957

I believe ants and honey bees have genetically-coded and baked-in specializations like worker and queen bees

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ICastFist@programming.dev on 06 Nov 14:32 collapse

A number of insects, like ants, bees and termites, create the equivalent of settlements (mounds and hives) and have structured societies, so to speak. Some termite mounds are very big, so maybe you could call it a city.

Whether what they have could be analogous to our economy is debatable, since they all work to feed their respective collectives and never engage in any form of trade with different communities, though they may fight

Sturgist@lemmy.ca on 06 Nov 14:54 collapse

Isn’t there one giant ant colony that’s essentially the same colony spread over several us states?

I’ll have to look it up and get back to this with answers.

DampSquid@feddit.uk on 06 Nov 15:20 collapse

There’s one, I think in Brazil, as big as the UK

ICastFist@programming.dev on 06 Nov 15:36 collapse

Welp, talk about learning something completely unexpected

the largest colonies may be those of the Argentine ant Linepithema humile, an invasive ‘tramp’ species native to South America.

One supercolony in Europe spans 6000 km of the coasts of Portugal, Spain, France and Italy

www.discoverwildlife.com/…/largest-ant-colony