Elephant and Anthill
David Shepherd
'Elephant and the anthill'
Signed Limited Edition of 850
Date of publication 1973
Image Size 39.5" x 18.5"
An ant colony is the basic unit around which ants organize their lifecycle.[1] Ant colonies are eusocial, communal, and efficiently organized and are very much like those found in other social Hymenoptera,
though the various groups of these developed sociality independently through convergent evolution.
The typical colony consists of one or more egg-laying queens, numerous sterile females (workers, soldiers) and, seasonally, many winged sexual males and females.
In order to establish new colonies, ants undertake flights that occur at species-characteristic times of the day. Swarms of the winged sexuals (known as alates) depart the nest in search of other nests.
The males die shortly thereafter, along with most of the females.
A small percentage of the females survive to initiate new nests.