15
a
construction crews if it would make good mortar, or to the garbage
heap kept just outside the nest.)36
Viewed from the human perspective, the activities of the
individual ants seemed to matter far less than the behavior of the
colony as a whole. In fact, the colony acted as if it were an
independent creature, feeding itself, expelling its wastes, defending
itself, and looking out for its future. Wheeler was the man who
dubbed a group of individuals collectively acting like one beast a
superorganism.37
The term superorganism slid into obscurity until it was revived
by Sloan Kettering head Lewis Thomas in his influential 1974 book
Lives Of A Cell.38 Superorganisms exist even on the very lowest rungs
of the evolutionary ladder. Slime mold are seemingly independent
amoeba, microscopic living blobs who race about on the moist surface
of a decaying tree or rotting leaf cheerfully oblivious to each other
when times are good. They feast gaily for days on bacteria and other
delicacies, attending to nothing but their own selfish appetites. But
when the food runs out, famine descends upon the slime mold world.
Suddenly the formerly flippant amoeba lose their sense of boisterous
individualism. They rush toward each other as if in a panic, sticking
together for all they're worth.
Gradually, the clump of huddled microbeasts grows to some-
thing you can see quite clearly with the naked eye. It looks like a slimy
plant. And that plant--a tightly-packed mass of former
freedom-lovers--executes an emergency public works project. Like
half-time marchers forming a pattern, some of the amoeba line up to
form a stalk that pokes itself high into the passing currents of air. Then
the creatures at the head cooperate to manufacture spores. And those
seeds of life drift off into the breeze.
If the spores land on a heap of rotting grass or slab of
decomposing bark, they quickly multiply, filling the slippery refuge
with a horde of newly-birthed amoeba. Like their parents, the little
prized morsel, to the nursery if it is ordinary nourishment, to the
<< < GO > >>
15
a
construction crews if it would make good mortar, or to the garbage
heap kept just outside the nest.)36
Viewed from the human perspective, the activities of the
individual ants seemed to matter far less than the behavior of the
colony as a whole. In fact, the colony acted as if it were an
independent creature, feeding itself, expelling its wastes, defending
itself, and looking out for its future. Wheeler was the man who
dubbed a group of individuals collectively acting like one beast a
superorganism.37
The term superorganism slid into obscurity until it was revived
by Sloan Kettering head Lewis Thomas in his influential 1974 book
Lives Of A Cell.38 Superorganisms exist even on the very lowest rungs
of the evolutionary ladder. Slime mold are seemingly independent
amoeba, microscopic living blobs who race about on the moist surface
of a decaying tree or rotting leaf cheerfully oblivious to each other
when times are good. They feast gaily for days on bacteria and other
delicacies, attending to nothing but their own selfish appetites. But
when the food runs out, famine descends upon the slime mold world.
Suddenly the formerly flippant amoeba lose their sense of boisterous
individualism. They rush toward each other as if in a panic, sticking
together for all they're worth.
Gradually, the clump of huddled microbeasts grows to some-
thing you can see quite clearly with the naked eye. It looks like a slimy
plant. And that plant--a tightly-packed mass of former
freedom-lovers--executes an emergency public works project. Like
half-time marchers forming a pattern, some of the amoeba line up to
form a stalk that pokes itself high into the passing currents of air. Then
the creatures at the head cooperate to manufacture spores. And those
seeds of life drift off into the breeze.
If the spores land on a heap of rotting grass or slab of
decomposing bark, they quickly multiply, filling the slippery refuge
with a horde of newly-birthed amoeba. Like their parents, the little
prized morsel, to the nursery if it is ordinary nourishment, to the
<< < GO > >>