
Last Ant Standing : Ants preemptively commit suicide to protect colony - iamelgringo
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/923/1?rss=1
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hugh
_Uncovering the pressures that drive this self-sacrifice could shed light on
the evolution of altruism, Kaspari added._

Well, I don't think "altruism" within an ant colony has much to do with
altruism in other species. Worker ants have no way of passing on their genes,
they're just programmed to do whatever it takes to preserve the copies of
those same genes within the reproducing members of the colony.

Altruism in animals with their own individual reproductive potential is a much
more interesting problem.

