crazyben

Well I can't post the whole paper on eusocial humans and other vertebrates up as it's under review right now, but I can... post the abstract to get all of you readers hot and bothered or wanting to bite my arm or something for being such a tease. The paper is under peer-review for a German sociobiology journal called "Naturwissenschaften":

Abstract: Foster and Ratnieks (2005) proposed the addition of the primate Home sapiens sapiens to the list of eusocial species on the basis that H. sapiens sapiens meets the three criteria for eusociality: overlapping generations, cooperative brood care, and sterile helpers in the form of grandmothers. In this paper, we propose another trait, polyphasic activity cycles, in which humans resemble the eusocial fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, and the naked mole-rat, Heterocephalus glaber. As a result of technical innovations in artificial light and heat, humans have been released from circadian and seasonal activity rhythms. Moreover, the availability of facultative-sterile helpers such as adolescents or grandmothers to successfully rear offspring, allow humans to work day or night shifts. In the final analysis, eusociality, once considered exotic and rare, is actually widespread and includes a number of vertebrate species, besides H. sapiens, whose families include facultative-sterile helpers.