The evolution of expendability: Why some ants traded armor for numbers

Ants with lots of workers tend to put less energy into making them armored.

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[Troper1138]

"Their study reveals that, as ant societies grew in complexity and numbers, they didn’t just make their workers smaller—they also made them cheaper."

Well, I guess Capitalism is well aligned with Nature and Biology!



/s

Capitalism really is well aligned with nature and biology--no sarcasm tags required.

We should, of course, always beware of the Naturalistic Fallacy. Just because something is "natural" (or "well aligned with Nature and Biology") does not necessarily mean it is good, or that we should wholeheartedly support it.

There's probably an "Inverse Naturalistic Fallacy" too--just because something is "natural" doesn't mean it's bad, either. ("We must overcome our sinful natures to achieve salvation!")

 

[Troper1138]

So, the termites are not closely related to the ants (although the ants are fairly closely related to the wasps and bees); turns out termites are basically cockroaches (which I learned about 90 seconds ago*). I wonder if someone will apply this sort of analysis to the termites and see how well it fits with them as well?

*I mean, I knew the termites aren't closely related to the ants; I didn't know they are closely related to the cockroaches. Gives a whole new wrinkle to the old "the cockroaches will be the only things to survive World War III and will inherit the Earth" meme. And then, they will build mighty cities, and great plantations of fungi, and so forth!