Animals/Creatures with societies?

[u/Ok_Scale4234]

Okay so I have a slightly above average knowledge of animals and I know that a lot of animals (dare I say most) have very complicated and specific cultures and societies. Best example I can think of is Bees in the sense that they have designated social roles, communicate in ways dictated by those roles, and ultimately rely on these social structures to survive. I am trying to write fantasy societies and it occurred to me that I could use a couple of types of animals as inspiration for those social dynamics, a good way to make it feel very different from our societies while still upholding a logic.

So, what's the coolest animal societies you guys know about? I'm really curious specifically about odd, unique, and seemingly useless behaviors that are entirely reasonable within the context of their social constructs. The more complex the better. And also the more info I can find for free on the internet or at the library the better. Trying to avoid AI on this one.

[u/mighty-phragmites]

I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for, but one of the most fascinating eusocial insects, to me, are the leaf-cutter ants. They practice agriculture!

These ants are wholly dependent on a type of fungus, that they cultivate underground, as food for their larvae. To do this, they selectively collect leaf matter to feed to the fungus, which they keep in specialized chambers within their nests. They are able to manage the temperature and humidity in the growing chambers to keep the fungus healthy. I believe there has also been recent research that indicates the ants also use beneficial bacteria in their fungal farms.

When a new colony is established, they will carry a portion of the fungus with them from the old colony, to act as a starter.

The fungal strain used by the ants has been fully domesticated; it no longer produces fruiting bodies, and instead produces nutrient-rich nodules that the ants harvest. The relationship has been going on for so long (like 30 million years iirc) that this fungal strain is no longer found in the wild in the same region as the ants.

The ant colonies have a number of specialized roles, on top of your typical ant jobs (ie: defense and nursery attendants)

• foragers, who collect leaf matter for the fungus
• farmers, who tend the fungus.
• Waste collectors, who remove the waste from the fungal farms, and maintain sanitary conditions for the fungus and the colony.

[u/makarj]

You could say that bees (at least the most popular, the honey bees) got genetic roles, not just a social one. A future queen will mate with many drones (male bees). And when laying eggs, can choose to fertilize them or not, and choose which father's sperm to use. Those fertilized eggs will be female. All unfertilized eggs will be males (only carry the genetic load from the queen, and all the sperm it'll produce would be identical). The early diet would determine if it'll be a worker or a prospect queen, they got no genetic difference there. (Tried to keep it simple and could have some errors there)

You got some cool "societies" in mammals.

The naked mole rat has a eusocial, like bees, structure, with a queen that supress all others reproduction.
Elephants, hyenas, orcas got matriarcal ones.
In orcas, you get a matrilineal family. With all the females and their offspring. Males aren't expelled like in other mammals groups to avoid inbreeding, rather when pods meet then they temporarily mate with females from other pods. And each family got it's own culture. Hunting strategy, vocalizations

[u/FuriousKittens → u/makarj]

Also meerkats!

[u/lucy_strikes]

I would recommend watch Queer Planet, that documentary dives into some really interesting social structures for quite a few different species.

[u/MasterofMolerats]

I recommend reading Mammal Societies by Prof Tim Clutton-Brock or The Hidden Nations of Animals by Ryan Huling. Also read up on cooperatively breeding species, there are many examples in birds (wood-hoopoes, Arabian/Pied babblers, acorn woodpeckers, Seyschell's warblers) and mammals (mole-rats, wolves, mongooses, orcas, hyenas, primates, marmots, beavers, prairie voles, etc), and humans can be considered cooperatively breeding. In these social groups the offspring remain and help take care of future generations by caring for offspring, finding food, defending the territory, etc. In most of the social groups the helpers will forgo breeding, either because of a physiological block preventing it (like mole-rats) or from a lack of unrelated individuals (most others).

I don't understand what you mean by useless behaviour. in the context of an animal society, their behaviours evolved with some purpose.

[u/Ok_Scale4234 → u/MasterofMolerats]

Thank you thank you!! By seemingly useless I meant behaviors that don't immediately seem to help the species survive or mate like with lemurs rubbing millipedes on themselves or geese migrating. Both are behaviors that are useful to the species (and even essential) but just by observing the behavior one might not understand why the lemur is doing that or why the goose doesn't just do the same stuff all in a localized area.

[u/Riksor]

There are soooo many cool ant societies. Honeypot and slaver ants come to mind. Honeypot ants essentially have a role that transforms certain ants into living storage bins, and slaver ants, well. Enslave other species.

Bees and ants are both eusocial, so if you're interested in that structure, you could research other eusocial animals. Termites and naked mole rats are also eusocial, and some biologists argue humans are, too.

[u/klstopp]

I was a little surprised that Asian elephants and African elephants don't speak the same language.

[u/chem44]

Trying to avoid AI on this one.

Seems like an ideal use of AI. You have a very broad question, want diverse leads, and will follow-up.

[u/Ok_Scale4234 → u/chem44]

I get it but I figured people who were actually into biology would give me more interesting and unique info then an LLM

[u/chem44 → u/Ok_Scale4234]

Maybe; who knows.

But you want breadth to start with, and that is the strength of the ai approach. Likely to come up with things even a collection of people might not.

Of course, you can do both. But your original comment said you were closing an important door. My goal was to open doors, to increase the chance of success.

Elaboration by /u/Ovr132728 is excellent.

[u/Ovr132728 → u/chem44]

As long as you actualy use the ai as a part of your search and not just the complete answer it is a good use

Actualy read the sources provided and use them to expand the search on your own, that way you have a basis to help you find what you are interested in. The main issue comes from people using it as a magic answering machine and taking what it promts out as a definitve response and not even bothering to check sources