Eusociality/Super Queens

[STM]

MOD EDIT: This thread is split off from this thread here.

You never know, Sligs may work like bees, with the majority of them actually being female, now there's a disturbing thought.

I'm an apiarist and they don't have the characteristics of a predominantly female eusocial species. I relate them to termites also because bees must put eggs straight into cells were they grow in very specific conditions, I expect some factors determine a queen in a mudokon society as bees do in that they feed a chosen egg a special type of food to stimulate ovaries and hormones but that is were the consistencies no doubt end.

[Hulaabeo]

I'm an apiarist and they don't have the characteristics of a predominantly female eusocial species. I relate them to termites also because bees must put eggs straight into cells were they grow in very specific conditions, I expect some factors determine a queen in a mudokon society as bees do in that they feed a chosen egg a special type of food to stimulate ovaries and hormones but that is were the consistencies no doubt end.

Then what would a Glukkon Queen be associated with?

[STM]

I again would side with something in the Isoptera class, termites reproduce the same way however, a glukkon is a squid like creature in the first place and therefore it's hard to draw references when such a creature should spend its life in a water based environment.

[Hulaabeo]

I again would side with something in the Isoptera class, termites reproduce the same way however, a glukkon is a squid like creature in the first place and therefore it's hard to draw references when such a creature should spend its life in a water based environment.

Yeah but mudokons evolved from birds. And sligs evolved from whatever.

[STM]

As I said the consistencies end there, I mean how did a creature that evolved from birds end up with a super species queen? That's not releasable nor possible...on Earth.

[Hulaabeo]

But then again, Mudokons kinda do look reptillian. That probably means they were like reptiles and birds? Because birds evolved from reptiles, I don't know. (Which just so happen to also lay eggs.)

[STM]

Still doesn't explain how they became a superspecies.

[Wil]

Same way any species on Earth develops eusociality. It's not limited to hymenopterans and isopterans, you know.

[STM]

No but by super species I do not mean eusocial I mean with a genetic queen (super queen not alpha female obviously), I was trying to get at that one cannot draw likeness to Oddworld evolution and our own because the lines are too blurred, in Oddworld birds evolved to have super queens as did most other species but on Earth this could not happen because birds do not have the typical genetics that cause such a trait to happen.

[Wil]

No but by super species I do not mean eusocial I mean with a genetic queen

And what do you believe the difference to be?

[STM]

eusocial determines a creature (usually insect I think but not limited to) who has attained the highest level of social coordination. In fact I think the only species out side of Isoptera and Menoptera with such a high social ranking is some type of mole. While a genetic queen dictates a single entity that is the sole reproducer in a colony.

[Wil]

Well fuck me, I'm convinced you haven't just read the first few bits of the Wikipedia page on Eusociality. Maybe you can redeem yourself by explaining what

eusocial determines a creature who has attained the highest level of social coordination.

means.

[STM]

We did this in my apiarist exam actually, I know far more about it than wikipedia.

Social coordination is pretty fucking self explanatory right? I mean let's swap those words around and see what we get, How coordinated a species is socially. There we go that wasn't so hard.

Eusocial is an unquestioning focus on a task that benefits a society fully, humans are incapable of this because of how our brains are wired up but bees and other eusocial species have a different mindset. That being said CCD has actually managed to completely destroy the eusocial aspect of some affect bee colonies.

[Nate]

Okay, but you're yet to explain how eusociality relates to genetics in such a way as to make it impossible for non-insects to develop it.

[STM]

It's not impossible, some sort of mole can do it, I don't know which though, I know they aren't the typical ones you get on your lawn in England though.

An insect probably finds it a little harder to survive successfully than a mammal does...I suspect, that is, anyway, I believe it's down to an evolutionary trait that was past on by natural selection. Or when God knitted the bees brains he told them that they should act as a perfect society to show all the other animals how to live. And that my friend is a really cute euphemism.

[Wil]

You're saying natural selection made individual insects find it harder to survive?

Social coordination is pretty fucking self explanatory right? I mean let's swap those words around and see what we get, How coordinated a species is socially. There we go that wasn't so hard.

Uh huh. How are you measuring that? Because I'm pretty sure social coordination amongst humans has accomplished much greater things that social coordination amongst bees. So how is their social coordination ‘higher’ than ours?

[Nate]

It's not impossible, some sort of mole can do it, I don't know which though, I know they aren't the typical ones you get on your lawn in England though.

An insect probably finds it a little harder to survive successfully than a mammal does...I suspect, that is, anyway, I believe it's down to an evolutionary trait that was past on by natural selection. Or when God knitted the bees brains he told them that they should act as a perfect society to show all the other animals how to live. And that my friend is a really cute euphemism.

Aaand... read this quoted post, then read this one again. Now tell me; if Naked Mole Rats can have a eusocial society, why can't animals descended from birds?

[STM]

No no, I'm saying due to natural selection, the trait of eusociality was passed on down the line making it easier for them to survive because it is so hard to even with the trait. Imagine if we had usurper bees, they'd be extinct in weeks.

And on your second point Max, while bees do everything for the good of the colony, humans do not, that'd be why we get rapist, sexual predators, drug addicts and benefit thieves.

Nate I'm saying birds couldn't develop super queens not eusociality, mudokons aren't eusocial. Fucking hell get your bloody facts straight.

[Manco]

Nate I'm saying birds couldn't develop super queens

And what are you basing this theory on?

[STM]

65 million years of evolution and the fact that I can tell from a dissected brain and what we know of bird 'psyche' if you will. Birds are barely sub-social and super queens intertwine. Of course we also know that birds do not have the acquired traits for a super queen (never could a bird undergo ecdysis).

It's not theory it's fact. This is really my field.

[Manco]

65 million years of evolution and the fact that I can tell from a dissected brain and what we know of bird 'psyche' if you will. Birds are barely sub-social and super queens intertwine. Of course we also know that birds do not have the acquired traits for a super queen (never could a bird undergo ecdysis).

Who says Oddworld birds evolved in the same way as ours?

Who says Oddworld birds have the same psyches as ours?

Who says that Oddworld birds can't develop traits for a super queen?

e:
Who says birds could never have evolved differently?

[STM]

Birds can't develop traits for a super queen anywhere, that's just stupid. A year 7 doing biology knows that, if you want to go down that path then fine. Sure it's fiction, there might as well be dragons. So let's just leave it that then. It's impossible to rationalise after all.

[Manco]

Birds can't develop traits for a super queen anywhere, that's just stupid.

Modern birds, perhaps. I'll bet in the right evolutionary conditions were met, their ancestors could.

Likely, no. Possible, yes.

e: countdown to BM coming in and disproving someone's theory

[STM]

I don't think he's going to disprove my theory because everything I've said is obvious biological science. No bird could, unless a bird becomes an insect or maybe a crustacean...it's not possible. What part of ecdysis don't you understand?

[Manco]

I don't think he's going to disprove my theory because everything I've said is obvious biological science. No bird could, unless a bird becomes an insect or maybe a crustacean...it's not possible. What part of ecdysis don't you understand?

What is the biological evidence, besides the "social" aspect? Because you said yourself that moles can be eusocial, so clearly it's not limited to insects.

Also, what does ecdysis have to do with it?

[STM]

You're confusing super queens with eusociality or I'm just not understanding you but birds could not ever evolve super queens.

If you are saying that they could become eusocial then yes I agree with you I just misunderstood you. Although birds have no need to be eusocial so it's unlikely.

[Manco]

You're confusing super queens with eusociality or I'm just not understanding you but birds could not ever evolve super queens.

I'm asking what would biological evidence there is that birds could never have (or develop) (or have developed) super queens.

[STM]

ECYDYSIS you need ecydysis for a super queen.
^ FULL STOP, FULL GOD DAMNED STOP. RAGE!

[Manco]

ECYDYSIS you need ecydysis for a super queen.
^ FULL STOP, FULL GOD DAMNED STOP. RAGE!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecdysis

Ecdysis (from Ancient Greek: ἐκδύω - ekduo - to take off, strip off[1]) is the moulting of the cuticula in arthropods and related groups (Ecdysozoa). Since the cuticula of these animals is also the skeletal support (the exoskeleton) of the body and is inelastic, it is shed during growth and a new, larger covering is formed. The old, empty exoskeleton is called an exuvia (or "exuvium").

After moulting, an arthropod is described as teneral; it is "fresh", pale and soft-bodied. Within one or two hours, the cuticle hardens and darkens following a tanning process similar to that of the tanning of leather.[2] It is during this short phase that the animal grows, since growth is otherwise constrained by the rigidity of the exoskeleton. Growth of the limbs and other parts normally covered by hard exoskeleton is achieved by transfer of body fluids from soft parts before the new skin hardens. A spider with a small abdomen may be undernourished but more probably has recently undergone ecdysis.

Ecdysis may also enable damaged tissue and missing limbs to be regenerated or substantially re-formed, although this may only be complete over a series of moults, the stump being a little larger with each moult until it is of normal, or near normal size again.

Like I said before, what does that have to do with queens?

[STM]

It means for the abdomen to become distended ecdysis had to happen a new layer forms which is larger than the last leading to segmented abdomens, there is more than just this that would stop a super queen from happening like the bones in a birds arse but this is the main reason that isn't to do with the birds brain.