Colonial

Species with this adaptation

Birds

• Barnacle goose
• Snow goose
• Eleonora's falcon
• Pied kingfisher
• Southern carmine bee-eater
• White-fronted bee-eater
• Little corella
• Socotra cormorant
• Red-billed quelea
• Sand martin
• Swallow
• Greater flamingo
• Lesser flamingo
• Herring gull
• Knot
• Lesser black-backed gull
• Adelie penguin
• Humboldt penguin
• King penguin
• Snares crested penguin
• Wood stork
• Galápagos petrel
• Snow petrel
• Storm petrel

Insects

• Army ant
• Common wasp
• Desert locust

Mammals

• Little bent-wing bat
• Straw-coloured fruit bat
• Meerkat
• Walrus
• Nubian ibex
• Arctic ground squirrel
• Capybara
• Star-nosed mole

Reptiles

• Galápagos giant tortoise
• Giant river turtle

About

In biology, a colony (from Latin colonia) refers to several individual organisms of the same species living closely together, usually for mutual benefit, such as stronger defences or the ability to attack bigger prey. Some insects (ants and honey bees, for example) live only in colonies. The Portuguese Man o' War is an example of a colony of four different polyp forms.

A colony of single-celled organisms is known as a colonial organism. Colonial organisms were probably the first step towards multicellular organisms via natural selection. The difference between a multicellular organism and a colonial organism is that individual organisms from a colony can, if separated, survive on their own, while cells from a multicellular lifeform (e.g., cells from a brain) cannot. Volvox (technically a coenebium) is an example for the border between these two states.

A bacterial colony is defined as a visible cluster of organisms growing on the surface of or within a solid medium, theoretically cultured from a single cell. Because all organisms within the colony descend from a single ancestor, they are genetically identical (except for mutations which occur at a low, unavoidable frequency, as well as the more likely possibility of contamination). Obtaining such genetically identical organisms (or pure strains) can be useful in many cases; this is done by spreading bacteria on a culture plate and starting a new stock of bacteria from a single colony.

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