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RE: Meet The World's Strangest Ants (Part 1/3)
Now that was an interesting article, @trumpman. Well done indeed. I especially liked the defense mechanism, autothysis. I just have to stand back and wonder how evolutionary development led to these little suicide bomber guys. Maybe the additional poison glands arose out of a genetic mutation, and benefited the individual somehow. But then, the social order found a different purpose and imposed some kind of peer pressure on the species to use autothysis to defend the colony. What do you think?
Actually i hadn't thought this from an evolutionary aspect. I have no crazy theory what could have actually pushed such a unique adaptation! Thats a good question I will definitely invest gate it for a future post!
Thanks dude, I appreciate that. I had always believed that evolutionary process favored adaptations that improve the survivability of the individual. Here, it almost looks like it favored one that helps a colony survive. I vaguely remember reading about something similar involving bacteria. The mutation made no sense for the individual, but made total sense for the collective. Unfortunately, I can't recall any further details about it.