Strip
58
October 4, 2009
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Honeybee
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A eusociality (from the greek 'eu', meaning good) describes a society of the highest level. It shows amongst others cooperative work and care of the young, overlapping generations and in general an extremely high amount of altruism. Animals that show these features are for example bees, wasps and ants. I find these simply fascinating. The role of the queen isn't to be an authoritarian leader with no other purpose than annoying its underlings (this would be kinda pointless and absurd, wouldn't it, and still it was/is so common in human history) but its function is just to reproduce. All the other bees have their specific task to fulfill and they simply know that they have to fulfill it to maintain their colony and species. They live in an absolutely altruistic way, and it works perfectly. And then I also want to make a little comment on why I chose an Ivy leaf to catch the jumping bee. Ivy stands for dependance, eternal life, loyality and friendship. Sounds logical if you consider how it embraces everything it grows on. But what I most like about it, is how it sums up what's important in a eusociality. Everyone is dependant on everyone else and everyone accepts this and shows it through a deep loyality and friendship towards everyone else. And this way it is possible for them to live and exist as long as possible. After all bees probably exist already for 100 million years. Shall we bet that humanity won't make it that long? |