Researchers Find 3,600-mile Ant Supercolony

darnellmc writes "Usually ants from different colonies fight till the death, but according to this article one group of ants from different queens work together. Resulting in the largest ant supercolony yet discovered. This supercolony reaches from the Italian Riviera along the coastline to northwest Spain. Probably not an the ideal location for a cookout considering this new find. This is the kind of think that used to be science fiction."

Comments

Big problem in California, Louisiana, FL too

[Merik]

I found this article(from about 2yrs ago)

Its about these same ants & thier domination in cerain areasin the US. In argentina there is twice the genetic diversity as in California, probably same ratio to this supercolony too. This species apparently has developed the ability to take advantage of whats called a genetic bottle neck; something that to most species is detrimental.

It seems thier so succesfull they are killing off local ant species 10 times thier size, which is in turn killing off lizards and such that feed on those ants. Evolutions a bitch, eh?

here's a picture of the ants pattern of spread so far across the US

Re:Big problem in California, Louisiana, FL too

[RoboOp]

To answer your question, native honeybees are doing rather poorly. Hasn't anyone else noticed nothing but yellow jackets and bumblebees at picnics?

Both wild and commercial North American beehives have been ravaged by parasites like the Varroa mite. The domesticated hives have been reduced by 70%, wild hives by 90%.

The mite is not native to the Americas. Evidently it was brought over with African bees in South America. It kills off native bees, opening a nice niche up in the ecosystem for the Africanized mixes that carry them. Nice huh?

As it was stated earlier, Evolution is a bitch.