EDINBURGH, Scotland, March 31 (UPI) -- Scottish and English scientists say a study supports the depiction of insects in the films Antz and Bee Movie, in which insects live in conformist societies.
The scientists from the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford said they created a mathematical model to study the evolution of cooperative groups of animals, known as superorganisms.
The study identifies scenarios in which groups act as a unit.
"We often see animals appearing to move in unison, such as bison or fish. However, what looks like a team effort is in fact each animal jostling to get to the middle of the group to evade predators," said Andy Gardner of the University of Edinburgh. "By contrast, an ant nest or a beehive can behave as a united organism in its own right. In a beehive, the workers are happy to help the community, even to die, because the queen carries and passes on their genes."
"However, superorganisms are quite rare, and only exist when the internal conflict within a social group is suppressed -- so we cannot use this term, for example, to describe human societies."
The findings appear in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.
