Go To The Lazy Ant You Busy One....

[Hermit]

...the devil finds work for idle ants...

[cronus]

The idle ants are living statues and solace in a lonely ant world. A reminder of the constant all seeing eye of the queen ant. A reminder of a healthy food surplus. If enough of the idler ants die out, and I guess they will if the lazy buggers can't be arsed to forage about, then the ant colony will split into two as it searches for a new queen & new food resources.

[cronus]

Like moderators in a nuclear reactor - don't do much except prevent the thing going super-critical....

[JimC]

Like moderators in a nuclear reactor - don't do much except prevent the thing going super-critical....

Just like us at Ratz!

[pErvinalia]

Ant ennui.

[mistermack]

The other interesting thing about this, is how the queen ant produces different classes of ant.
As the queen only mates once, and all the workers are clones with identical dna, they must be producing specialised workers, like soldiers, by varying the diet of the grubs. Or by hormones given off by the queen.
So a huge soldier ant has the same genes as one of the tiniest workers.

So to produce this class of lazy ant, there must be some difference in hormones or feeding.

Of course, it could be a parasite that is so successful, it doesn't kill the hosts.
Just affects their behaviour, to make them lazy.
I have a feeling I'm carrying one of those myself.