[blacksmith_tb]

The wait-state is an interesting adaptation, I have wondered about the small ants that invade my house, they don't appear to have any kind of similar requirement. Which does lead to a lot of ant death (I feel bad about it, but I don't want them getting into my food). Which has always struck me as maladaptive - to recover a few calories of crumbs, the colony will send hundreds of ants in, yet I am sure that growing those workers took more resources than they bring back. It may be that in nature there aren't any similar situations (for these ants, at least - no anteaters in North America).