Encyclopedia > Eusocial

  Article Content

Eusociality

Redirected from Eusocial

Eusociality is the phenomenon of reproductive specialisation found in some species, whereby a specialised caste carries out reproduction in a colony of non-reproductive animals.

The most familiar examples are insects such as ants and bees (the order Hymenoptera), with reproductive queens and sterile workers. Eusociality may be easier for these species to evolve due to their haplodiploidy[?], which increases the significance of kin selection. Another extremely widespread group exhibiting eusociality are the termites (order Isoptera).

Eusocial mammals (several naked mole rat[?] species), crustaceans and other arthropods are known.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Flapper

... to leave the nest. While many in the United States assumed at the time that the term "flapper" derived from a fashion of wearing galoshes unbuttoned so that they flapped as ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 48.1 ms