this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
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todayilearned

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TIL an ant mega-colony exists across 3 continents and is thought to contain billions of ants, all of which recognise each other to be from the same colony. The largest part of the colony is in Europe (news.bbc.co.uk)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Does this mean that there's just one queen for this entire colony?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Nope. The weird thing about the megacolony is that different anthills don't recognize each other as "belonging to a different queen", so they don't attack each other. They still have their own queens, though. Effectively they all act like one big family, instead of rival clans.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Good question. I would think not, though. Hopefully an expert can answer.