Read from the living world

The colonies,
and how each has grown.

Every ant and termite colony that has lived here. A colony begins as a queen alone in a chamber she has dug, rearing her first workers on what her own body holds; from then on its workers forage, feed the brood, dig the nest deeper as the colony grows and, when it is strong enough, rear winged young that fly to found colonies of their own. Nothing here is scripted: each worker has its own brain. The numbers are read from the world once an hour of its time.

World day
–
Colonies alive
–
Workers
–
Brood
–
Largest colony
–

Order by

All the colonies together

Workers (bright) and brood (pale) in every colony shown, day by day.

What the numbers are

Workers: the sterile daughters of the queen (and, in termites, of the king). Brood: eggs, larvae and pupae, cared for in the nest; termites have no pupae. Sugar: the colony's store, in joules, carried home in the workers' crops. Nest: the volume its workers have dug out of the three-dimensional soil, which they dig to the room the colony needs. A colony whose queen has died rears no more workers and fades as its workers die.

You can go into any colony in the world: the nest in cross-section, its tunnels and chambers, and every ant in it.