Phase IV has come at last

We're back. We'd never really leave you, you know.

Plus, we've learned some mighty interesting things. For instance, did you happen to catch the discovery of a new global superorganism? We'll give you the run-down.

The Argentine Ant (which as you may have surmised originates from South America) has been transported all over the globe by unwitting humans. They're chiefly known for two things: 1). their aggression towards native insects and 2). their titanic colonies. There are colonies in Europe, America, and Japan that have a combined size of more than four-thousand miles in length. There is no solidarity amongst the Argentine Ants. These are fiercely tribalistic insects and inter-colony cooperation is non-existent.

However, recent observations by Japanese scientists suggests that the largest Argentine Ant colonies are in fact components of an even larger mega-colony. By taking ants taken from several different locations across the world and putting them in the same chamber, they found that the ants did not display the customary belligerence, as if they were all close relatives. The implication is that this insect society is considerably vast and comparable to human society in planetary scope.

We'd best be vigilante.

Would you like to know more?
-Read this BBC article
-Watch this scientific analysis of the ant mega-colony


Lease Holder Addendum: This is post number 88, which is the same number of keys on a piano. Good to know.