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4 - Eusociality in Humans

from Part II - Sociocultural Anthropology and Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2020

By
Laura Betzig
Edited by
Lance Workman ,
Will Reader  and
Jerome H. Barkow
Lance Workman
Affiliation:
University of South Wales
Will Reader
Affiliation:
Sheffield Hallam University
Jerome H. Barkow
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia
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Summary

At one end of the eusociality continuum lie members of the genus Atta, the leafcutter ants. Across the American tropics, surrounded by the forests, grasslands, and pastures they harvest, these ants live in enormous subterranean nests, where they grow fungus. Older, bigger, “major” workers come and go along trails outside, where they forage for plants used as fungus substrates or specialize as soldiers in nest defense; younger, smaller, “minor” workers stay on the nest, where they tend fungus gardens and feed brood. At the core of every Atta colony is a single queen, who lays an average of 20 eggs every minute, or around 28,800 eggs every day, or more than 10,000,000 eggs every year. Over the course of her approximately 15-year lifespan, she may produce as many as 150–200 million young. Workers occasionally lay trophic eggs that are fed to the queen; and rarely, their rudimentary ovaries produce male larvae and pupae after a queen is lost.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior , pp. 37 - 46
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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