This only is tangentially related to feralculture, but I think amusing food for thought.
Ants are sort of an interesting analogue to human societies, i think. And possibly applicable to anarchist organization theories. Colonies remind me a bit of Fourier’s phalanx schemes.
Some 60 million years ago, a family of South American ants “invented” agriculture. These ants spend their time feeding leaves to a domesticated type of fungus. The fungus in return provides heaping amounts of nutrients. So much so, that the colony population can number in the millions. Far more than foraging ants can sustain – similar to human agriculture.
A recent study even suggests that early farming ants would have been weaker than their foraging counterparts. Also like human farmers. However, a big difference between ants and humans, is that the ants incrementally evolved into a farming society. Whereas the human transition (takeover?) was brief – like a societal coup.
I haven’t done any real research on the topic. But I’m curious how many other parallels there are between social apes and social insects. E.g., if these farming ants generate a surplus, who controls it? How is it distributed? Are they more aggressive or docile than a typical ant? Are there limits on how big a colony can grow? Why have separate warring colonies instead of just one big mega-colony? Does the queen ant get any extra special benefits. Does her ‘power’ wane or strengthen?
Anyway, just spit-balling on a boring morning. 