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Comment by pmichaud | Hacker News Reader

This story is really misleading. It's not a "megacolony" -- it's several distinct colonies from around the world that don't connect in any way.

The meat of the article is that researchers collected specimens from around the world, and some of the ants from different colonies didn't try to kill each other on sight.

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Their point is the colony's are connected by people continously transporting ant's between each giant colony. So even if there is not a fixed land bridge there is continous mixing between the colony's.

What's even more interesting is people probably help to create and maintain the giant colony's in the same geographic area in the same way.

Edit: Not to complain, but what's up with the -2?

I was a little confused at that too. I didn't downmod you but your original post had some pretty mangled grammar. Looks better now though.

well, i believe they're using the term "megacolony" in reference to the fact that ants from different colonies are usually aggressive to ants from other colonies. but in this case, several giant colonies from different continents aren't aggressive towards one another and are genetically linked, so they're referring to the group of familial and non-aggressive colonies as a megacolony.

You sound unimpressed. But do you really feel you could take humans from all around the world and put them together without them trying to kill one another?

AFAIK, no one in my college killed any other student while we were there, whether they were citizens or on student visa.

At age 2 or 3, absolutely!

What happens when they're older is anyone's guess.

Maybe as long as there aren't any toys in the room.

Yes. I lived in San Francisco for years. The murder rate there is about 7 per 100 000 population per year. Does that qualify as "not trying to kill one another" in your book?

A "metacolony" would be better suited? But that will miss the size notion that "mega" brings

Like StreetFighter, without the action.

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