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Animal sociality


Social animal is a term used to describe creatures that are greatly interactive with other members of its species, with an individual animal's success highly dependent on the overall cohesion and propagation of the group.

Eusociality is the highest level of social organization. It is characterised by:

A few species, notably insects of the orders Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps) and Isoptera (termites) show an extreme form of sociality, involving highly organized societies, with individual organisms specialized for distinct roles. This form of social behaviour is referred to as eusociality. In termites, labour is divided amongst different castes, including reproductive 'queens' and 'kings', and non-reproductive workers and soldiers. Only two rodent species, the naked mole-rat and the Damaraland mole-rat, are known to be eusocial. One species of weevil, Austroplatypus incompertus, has been described as eusocial.

Presociality is when animals exhibit more than just sexual interactions with members of the same species, but fall short of qualifying as eusocial. That is, presocial animals can display communal living, cooperative care of young, or primitive division of reproductive labour, but they do not display all of the three essential traits of eusocial animals. Examples include numerous insects, especially hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps), humans, many birds and chimpanzees. Humans and some species of Callitrichidae are unique among primates in their degree of cooperative care of young. Some insects such as locusts can become gregarious, swarming in huge numbers in response to overcrowding, but are otherwise solitary and exhibit little social behaviour.


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