AN EVOLUTIONARY arms race spurred the development of the world’s largest
animal societies, says Graeme Boswell, a mathematician at Dundee University in
Scotland.
Gigantic creatures such as elephants can evolve for various reasons: to
outgrow predators or compete for mates, for instance. But no one knew why giant
animal societies, such as the colonies of African army ants 20 million strong,
have evolved.
So Boswell modelled their evolution. He found that as colonies of aggressive
ants grow, they become more likely to encounter other colonies or species. In
these conditions, larger colonies will tend to triumph (Proceedings of the
Royal…
