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superorganism

American  
[soo-per-awr-guhn-iz-uhm] / ˌsu pərˈɔr gənˌɪz əm /

noun

  1. Zoology. a tightly organized group of individual organisms, such as ants, that functions as a single organism through collective behavior.


Example Sentences

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See Examples For:

At the scale of the colony, ants function as a "superorganism," where different members take on roles essential for group survival.

From Science Daily Dec. 3, 2025

The ants are biological marvels, living in enormous colonies that function as a single superorganism.

From New York Times Apr. 24, 2023

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction: Two closely related species hybridize and create a superorganism whose growth and expansion seems unstoppable.

From Science Magazine May 31, 2022

Cybervisionaries saw in the superorganism an ideal way of describing the networked global brain that they were just beginning to imagine.”

From Washington Post Dec. 27, 2021

Some of these microbes are themselves, like the termite superorganism, composite animals.

From The New Yorker Sep. 10, 2018

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