An Army Ant is a type of ant known for being completely nomadic, making living 'bivouacs' out of their own bodies every night after their infamous raids.
These raiding columns often take branching patterns and the soldiers and workers in it will maul any other invertebrate or small vertebrate in their path to take home as food.
They are well known by species Eciton burchellii and Dorylus nigricans, the 'archetypal' Army Ant and the African Driver Ant.
First: No hiveminds. In the real world, ant colonies work off of extremely complex pheromone communication, touch communication, and built in instincts, all evolved to work like an oiled machine.
The queen has no direct control of the colony, and simply lays eggs and produced pheromones, all that distinguish her as the royal egg layer of the barbarous colony.
Second: Semi-autonomy? The workers and soldiers have intelligence and autonomy, but are practically indoctrinated from birth with pheromones, speech, and such other things.
However, this does mean that, theoretically, they CAN revolt and turn on their broodmother... But why would they? There's the thing, non-queens can't breed... Due to pheromones.
Third: Pheromones. Pheromones are extremely powerful, and are often one of the most key resources needed to keep an ant colony together, and keep the queen from getting culled by her daughters.
These pheromones also mean that, even though some workers and soldiers in some ant species can reproduce, they aren't allowed to, especially with the threat of death.
Lastly: The caste system. Unlike ants which, at most, have around 5 fairly similar castes, this is a fantasy race, and I can do whatever the hell I want... So, to make this race alot more fun, I will be making
different castes in the species wildly different for manother, mostly pulling from interesting combative ants, like real world army ants. See the image below for all species included for drawing.
The Hadzareq are our race of creatures. Military, casted, ceremonial, they are truly... And army of ants. I'm not sorry for that joke.
Their name, 'Hadzareq', originates from the Hungarian word for army, 'Hadsereg'. I chose this over the original name 'Ecclesiastians' because it sounds alot more unique, obviously.
The Hadzareq have very distinct castes that all do their own jobs around the colony, all to keep this well-oiled, humongous, insectoid machine running smoothly and efficiently. For the Broodmother (Queen)
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