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“The Woodlander Ants were like human explorers coming ashore on an uninhabited island. The abandoned Supercolony terrain presented the starving colony with a rich and temporarily boundless food supply. The Woodlanders were free for a while of competition from other ant colonies” (236).
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“The Woodlander Ants were like human explorers coming ashore on an uninhabited island. The abandoned Supercolony terrain presented the starving colony with a rich and temporarily boundless food supply. The Woodlanders were free for a while of competition from other ant colonies” (236).
“The Woodlanders stayed close to home, forced to survive on a few small scraps of food, mostly dead insects” (232).
“The visit, by a human family that had spread its picnic lunch carelessly next to the Trailheader nest, continued into the middle of the afternoon” (211).
“They captured or unintentionally frightened away pollinators of flowering plants, including the diversity of butterflies, moths, bees, wasps, hoverflies, and flowering beetles that once swarmed over the area” (226).
“However, each ant also carried in her head a biological clock set on a full twenty-four-hour cycle, run with a precision far beyond the capacity of a human brain” (200).
“The Trailhead queen was dead . . . She simply sat on the floor of the royal chamber and died” (175).
“Hence the workers were at first unaware of this mother’s death” (175).
“The origin of the NokobeeSupercolony was due to a change in only one gene in the hereditary code of ants. The mutation did not create new processes in the brain and sensory system. Instead, it shut a couple of them down. Supercolony was much less sensitive to colony odors than others of its species” (219).
“The mutation had changed not only the social structure of its carriers but also the rules of engagement in war. The myrmidons of Supercolony fell upon rival colonies like a Mongol horde” (220).
Wild Card • Choose a biology concept from the list below to connect to The Anthill Chronicle. In what way do you see the connection?