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How hundreds of ants accidentally kill themselves and evolution won't correct it
- jleyank 16y agoAre the particular army ants walking in a circle even able to breed? Or are the mating ants safely tucked away in the colony? If it's the latter, than the only way evolutionary pressure can be applied is to threaten the reproductive success of the breeders. So unless the whole colony decides to pirouette...
- kbutler 16y agoThey don't breed, but worker ants contribute to the survival of the colony. If all/many of the workers die, the breeding ants would die, too. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder for worker honey bee disappearance killing the hive (not suggesting any death-spiral/circular milling connection). But yes, a few hundred (or thousand) worker ants dying isn't a strong enough evolutionary signal to matter to the healthy hive.