Ants are dominant in a large number of terrestrial ecosystems on every continent outside of Antarctica. One of several reasons for their widespread ecological success is, undoubtedly, their social colonial nature. In fact, ants could be considered metacolonial. This Saturday, spend time considering this excerpt that Fraternal Correspondant Joshua Blanchard discovered in I Contain Multitudes, by Ed Yong:

Ants live in colonies that can number in their millions, but every single ant is a colony unto itself.

EDITORS NOTE: Fraternal Correspondant Joshua Blanchard is a Ph.D. Candidate studying philosophy at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is advised by Dr. Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, who describes philosophy as a “fact-free discipline”.