The world’s largest known animal society is a transcontinental network of Argentine ants (Linepithema humile). In a 2010 study, workers from major introduced populations in North America, Europe, Asia, Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia generally accepted one another in laboratory encounters. Their genetic markers and cuticular-hydrocarbon profiles were also unusually similar. Together, those results support calling the tested populations one supercolony.
That description has precise limits. It does not mean every Argentine ant on Earth belongs to one organization, that the insects occupy a single continuous nest, or that scientists have counted all of them. “Supercolony” means that ants in separated nests show little aggression toward one another and can function as colony mates despite living thousands of kilometres apart.
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What makes an ant society a supercolony?
A conventional ant colony usually consists of a queen or queens, workers, brood and the nest structures those insects occupy. Colony members recognize nest-mates through chemical cues on their bodies. An unfamiliar ant is often attacked, expelled or killed.
A supercolony is a different social pattern. Many physically separate nests share a broad recognition system: workers from distant nests do not fight in the way ordinary non-nest-mates do. They can mingle, exchange food and cooperate across the boundaries that would normally separate colonies. The nests remain separate; the social identity is what extends.
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Argentine ants are particularly suited to this arrangement. Introduced populations often contain many queens, and workers can move between nearby nests. When the same low-aggression recognition system is spread across a large introduced range, scientists may describe the connected populations as one supercolony. The term is about behavior and social compatibility, not a single underground chamber or an uninterrupted trail of ants across a continent.
What the 2010 study actually tested
Van Wilgenburg, Torres and Tsutsui’s 2010 paper, “The global expansion of a single ant supercolony,” combined three kinds of evidence. No single test proves a worldwide colony; the conclusion came from agreement among behavioral, genetic and chemical measurements.
| Evidence | What scientists measured | What the result means |
|---|---|---|
| Behavioral assays | Encounters between workers from populations separated by oceans | Workers from the major tested populations usually showed little aggression and accepted one another as nest-mates. |
| Genetic comparisons | Markers from introduced populations in several regions | The major populations were genetically similar, consistent with a relatively recent shared source and limited divergence. |
| Chemical profiles | Cuticular hydrocarbons, the surface compounds ants use partly for recognition | The ants had similar chemical signatures, helping explain why workers did not respond to one another as hostile outsiders. |
The behavioral result is the most intuitive: put workers from distant locations together and observe whether they attack. Genetic similarity supplies a history of relatedness, while matching cuticular chemistry supplies a mechanism for recognition. Agreement among all three lines of evidence made the supercolony interpretation stronger than any one measurement would have been alone.
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The study examined major introduced populations in North America, Europe, Asia, Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia. Workers from these populations generally accepted one another in the reported assays, and their genetic and chemical profiles were similar. Because the locations are separated by oceans and national borders, the result is described as intercontinental.
“Global” in this context means that mutually tolerant populations occur across a very wide introduced range. It does not mean that every Argentine-ant nest sampled anywhere on Earth was tested or that every population shares the same social identity.
Where is the network largest on the ground?
A 2002 study by Giraud, Pedersen and Keller documented two immense Argentine-ant supercolonies in southern Europe. The principal European supercolony extended roughly 6,000 kilometres from Italy to the Spanish Atlantic coast. That figure is a regional range, not the end-to-end length of the entire intercontinental society and not a measurement of a continuous physical nest.
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The European result provided an early demonstration that Argentine ants could maintain a shared social identity over extraordinary distances. The 2010 comparisons connected that kind of regional pattern with compatible populations on other continents, while still leaving open the possibility that additional supercolonies exist.
How scientists separate observations from historical explanations
The experiments directly observed acceptance, genetic similarity and chemical similarity. The study’s explanation for those observations is historical: the dominant introduced populations probably descended from a shared ancestral source and have diverged little during more than a century of separation.
That is an inference supported by the data, not a complete reconstruction of every shipment, founder event or later migration. Introduced populations can lose genetic diversity when they are founded by a small number of insects, and similar recognition chemistry may persist when populations remain closely related. The study used this combination of limited divergence and low aggression to explain why distant workers still behave as colony mates.
What the supercolony does not include
Membership is not universal. The 2010 study recorded aggression involving ants from South Africa and smaller secondary colonies in Hawaii and California. Those conflicts show that Argentine ants can belong to different social units even when they are the same species and live in the same broad introduced region.
- Not every Argentine ant worldwide: some tested populations fought, and several other supercolonies were not tested.
- Not one continuous nest: the society is distributed among separate nests, streets, gardens, orchards and other habitats.
- Not a global headcount: the sources do not provide a census of workers, queens or brood in the transcontinental network.
- Not proof that all unsampled populations are members: the authors specifically noted that additional supercolonies might be related but were outside the tested set.
These qualifications matter because “largest colony” can sound like a measured population total. In this case, the record primarily concerns the spatial extent of a shared social identity.
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How big can a local Argentine-ant population become?
Historical collections illustrate the density possible in a single site without serving as a census of the supercolony. Horton’s 1918 collection, reported by Van Wilgenburg and colleagues, removed more than one million Argentine-ant queens along with 4.4 cubic metres of workers and brood from a 19-acre Louisiana orchard.
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That extraordinary haul describes one orchard at one time. It cannot be multiplied into a global estimate, because the collection method, season, local habitat and portion of the population sampled are not measurements of the network as a whole. It does, however, show why a society made up of many populous nests can become ecologically conspicuous even without a single central nest.
Why the authors call it the most populous known animal society
Van Wilgenburg, Torres and Tsutsui wrote: “Given the spatial extent of the Argentine ant society we report here, there can be little doubt that this intercontinental supercolony represents the most populous known animal society.” Their wording is the authors’ interpretation of the society’s exceptional geographic scale.
It should not be read as the result of a direct census. The study did not count every worker or queen across Europe, Asia, the Pacific, North America and Australia. “Most populous” reflects the combination of a very large distribution and colony-like social tolerance among the populations they tested.
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No. A 2022 estimate by Schultheiss and colleagues calculated approximately 20 × 1015 ants—20 quadrillion individuals—and about 12 megatons of dry-carbon biomass for all ants on Earth. That estimate includes every ant species worldwide, from tropical forests to deserts and cities. It is not a count of Argentine ants and not a count of the transcontinental supercolony.
No reliable population total for the Argentine-ant supercolony is established by the studies discussed here. Converting the known range into a headcount would require extensive, standardized sampling of nest density, seasonal worker numbers, queen numbers and habitat occupancy across multiple continents.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why low aggression is the key finding
Ant colonies are often defined by a boundary: nest-mates are accepted, outsiders are rejected. Argentine-ant supercolonies weaken that boundary over large areas. Workers from distant nests can encounter one another without the costly fights that normally protect a colony’s food, brood and territory.
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The social advantage is straightforward, but its magnitude should not be exaggerated. The experiments show compatibility under the reported assay conditions; they do not demonstrate that every worker from every location will cooperate in every natural situation. Weather, food scarcity, nest crowding and local colony boundaries can still affect encounters.
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How to interpret the map without imagining a single mass of ants
- Think in populations, not one nest. Each location contains its own nests, queens, workers and brood.
- Think in recognition rules. The connection is demonstrated by low aggression and compatible chemical profiles.
- Think in sampled regions. The strongest evidence covers the major introduced populations tested in the 2010 study.
- Keep the exceptions visible. South African ants and secondary colonies in Hawaii and California did not fit the broad pattern.
- Separate range from abundance. A 6,000-kilometre European span and an intercontinental distribution describe geography, not a counted number of ants.
What remains unknown
Several questions remain open. The full number of related Argentine-ant supercolonies is not known, because the 2010 study did not test every population. The precise routes by which the dominant lineage moved between continents are also not established by the behavioral assays alone. Nor is there a direct estimate of the total workers, queens or brood in the society.
Future sampling could identify additional populations that share the same recognition system, populations that are genetically related but behaviorally distinct, or local boundaries that are invisible on a coarse geographic map. Those possibilities do not weaken the established finding: among the major populations tested, distant workers often behaved as members of one enormous social unit.
The answer in one sentence
The Argentine ant’s transcontinental supercolony is the largest known animal society by reported social reach, supported by cross-continental worker acceptance and matching genetic and chemical profiles—not by a census or by a single nest spanning the planet.
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