The classic thought experiment about a horse-sized duck and a hundred duck-sized horses is more than a joke. It captures a deep tradeoff between quantity and quality that shows up in nature, including ...

Ant species that evolved thinner shells traded individual armor protection for increases in colony size, enabling improved food gathering, task organization and defense, according to researchers from ...

Some ants thrive by choosing numbers over strength. Instead of heavily protecting each worker, they invest fewer resources in individual armor and produce far more ants. Larger colonies then ...

Leaf-cutter ants of the species Acromyrmex echinatior are building a continuous mineral shield on their exoskeletons by pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converting it into high-magnesium ...