Worthless and Weak

A thought has occurred to me, and I doubt I'm the first person to have ever thought this but here goes. With certain species of insects, namely ants, termites, wasps and bees, isn't the organism the hive, not the little crawley thing 6 legs a thorax and an abdomen? Lets think about it; at least in terms of ants (which I think I remember something about).

The colony produces various types of ants, such as worker ants or soldier ants, these ants perform specific functions. This is similar to cells in a plant or animal.

Once every so often (during the night of the flying ants) the flying ants will go around and fly everywhere, these are either drones or future queens. When the drone meets the queen, they potentially form a new colony. This is similar to sexual reproduction, with the drones being similar to sperm cells, and the queens similar to egg cells (ok, ok, it is sexual reproduction, but isn't it more informative to view it as sexual reproduction between colonies, not as sexual reproduction between individuals belonging to colonies?)

Third, a vast majority of individual ants don't meet the 6 criteria of life, specifically they don't (and can't) reproduce.

Finally, as the colony is the offspring of a single mating between a queen and a drone, the individuals within the colony have very similar if not identical DNA, much like cells within the body of a plant or animal.

Ok, I'm sure, that this post is either going to completely revolutionize biology, or is either common knowledge among just about everybody, or maybe it's just factually wrong. Whatever

Labels: sex