Ultrasocial group cooperative “strategies” maximise reproductive success. These include division of labour, generational overlap, and cooperative care of offspring (Wilson Reference Wilson2012). They have been described in some insects (Nowak et al. Reference Nowak, Tarnita and Wilson2010); primates, including man (see Alberts et al. Reference Alberts, Altmann, Brockman, Cords, Fedigan, Pusey, Stoinski, Strier, Morris and Bronikowski2013; Foster & Ratnieks Reference Foster and Ratnieks2005); ungulates (Loison et al. Reference Loison, Festa-Bianchet, Gaillard, Jorgenson and Jean-Michel Jullien1999; Shannon et al. Reference Shannon, Slotow, Durant, Sayialel, Poole, Moss and McComb2013); and various cetaceans (see McAuliffe & Whitehead Reference McAuliffe and Whitehead2005).

Gowdy & Krall (G&K) provide a scholarly review the economies of scale, efficiency, and reproductive fitness conferred and the resulting efficiencies of production and resource use. These economic drivers are important to the success of human ultrasocieties, but with an associated loss of individual autonomy.

I agree that the support of larger social groups requires efficient production and utilisation of nutrition, which then enable some members to engage in other activities, but I am not convinced that strict parallels are robust or informative. Explanations in behavioural evolution too often need to draw on studies of easily accessible species, are inconsistently evidence-based, and frequently invoke post hoc ergo procter hoc argument.

The success of ultrasocial insects relies on a diversity of factors: their exosymbiotic approach to agriculture (see Benckiser Reference Benckiser2010); collective parasite defence (Cremer et al. Reference Cremer, Sophie, Armitage and Schmid-Hempel2007); and often the adjustment of colony size and behaviour to resource or climate change through polyandric genetic mechanisms (Oldroyd & Fewell Reference Oldroyd and Fewell2007), which guide simple iterative patterns of genetically controlled altricial behaviour. The insect transition from family to ultrasocial living appears to be under genetic control (Kapheim et al. Reference Kapheim, Pan, Li, Salzberg, Puiu, Magoc, Robertson, Hudson, Venkat, Fischman, Hernandez, Yandell, Ence, Holt, Yocum, Kemp, Bosch, Waterhouse, Zdobnov, Stolle, Kraus, Helbing, Moritz, Glastad, Hunt, Goodisman, Hauser, Grimmelikhuijzen, Pinheiro, Nunes, Soares, Tanaka, Simões, Hartfelder, Evans, Barribeau, Johnson, Massey, Southey, Hasselmann, Hamacher, Biewer, Kent, Zayed, Blatti III, Sinha, Johnston, Hanrahan, Kocher, Wang, Robinson and Zhang2015).

A number of catastrophic changes to ultrasocial insect colonies are well-documented: Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is one example of overdetermined social implosion (Kribs-Zaleta & Mitchell Reference Kribs-Zaleta and Mitchell2014; Olroyd 2007). The devastation of South African honeybee colonies through automictic thelytoky provides another (Martin et al. Reference Martin, Beekman, Wossler and Ratnieks2002; Rabeling & Kronauer Reference Rabeling and Kronauer2013). Whether such events are infrequent or common is difficult to determine. Ultrasocial insect groups seem more vulnerable and less rapidly adaptable to genetic anomaly than their human equivalents.

In humans, the transition from hunter-gatherer groups to ultrasocial agrarian societies was driven by diverse invention: improvements in irrigation (see Ng et al. Reference Ng, Wood and Ziegler2015), fertiliser use (Bogaard et al. Reference Bogaard, Fraser, Heaton, Wallace, Vaiglova, Charles, Jones, Evershed, Styring, Andersen, Arbogast, Bartosiewicz, Gardeisen, Kanstrup, Maier, Marinova, Ninov, Schäfer and Stephan2013), insect control (see Berenbaum Reference Berenbaum1995), and plant and animal domestication (Gepts et al. Reference Gepts, Famula, Bettinger, Brush, Damania, McGuire and Qualset2012; Larson & Fuller Reference Larson and Fuller2014; Zohary et al. Reference Zohary, Hopf and Weiss2012).

Human catastrophe has resulted more typically from serendipity and lack of foresight for events ranging from natural disasters (Whyte Reference Whyte2008), problems with irrigation (see Stone Reference Stone2006), food distribution and storage (Silver Reference Silver2012), and disruption by intraspecies conflict (Turchin 2006).

Much human behaviour is inherently variable, transient, and eclectic in “content” (for example, in our cognitive and mechanical abilities; ethical and moral values; language use; and literary, musical, and artistic skills; see, e.g., Tomasello Reference Tomasello2014). Early attempts at maintaining ultrasocieties frequently struggled or collapsed through lack of planning or adequate knowledge (see Fraser & Rimas Reference Fraser and Rimas2010).

Eusocial insect success depends on fixed altricial behaviour. Human success depends on application of more arbitrary acquired skills through an extended period of behavioural neoteny, with eclectic and varied results. Fritz Haber's discoveries of both artificial fertiliser and poison gas and Alfred Nobel's introduction of nitroglycerin and the Nobel prize may, in toto, have had little effect on human success.

The only example to date of human behaviour affecting the genetic makeup of a population is Genghis Khan (see Zerjal et al. Reference Zerjal, Xue, Bertorelle, Wells, Bao, Zhu, Qamar, Ayub, Mohyuddin, Fu, Li, Yuldasheva, Ruzibakiev, Xu, Shu, Du, Yang, Hurles, Robinson, Gerelsaikhan, Dashnyam, Mehdi and Tyler-Smith2003). Our behavioural flexibility stems from our individual capacity for rapid learning in our early family environment, and its co-construction with our caregivers over an extended period of neoteny. This process of intersubjectivity shapes our ability to predict, relate to, and empathise with the behaviour of those around us (Aitken Reference Aitken2008). We are beginning to understand the neurobiologies of these complex intrapersonal processes (see Dumas et al. Reference Dumas, Nadel, Soussignan, Martinerie and Garnero2010; McCall & Singer Reference McCall and Singer2012; Schilbach Reference Schilbach2015).

A feature of human groups is the high proportion of post-menopausal and post-andropausal members. Ceteris paribus, this should reduce reproductive fitness and has perplexed evolutionary biologists (Medawar Reference Medawar1952). The various post-reproductive roles of contributing to labour, sharing care of the young, and imparting context-specific trans-generational “herd memory” help maximise reproductive fitness and largely addresses the issue (see Croft et al. Reference Croft, Brent, Franks and Cant2015). Recent changes to family structure and age demographics in many human ultrasocieties have disconnected post-reproduction individuals from these roles, with as yet untested but potentially deleterious consequences for economic fitness and ultimately for species survival.

Our understanding of mammalian senescence is still scant (see Brinton Reference Brinton2012). Some ungulates seem to show differential post-reproductive survival, but few have been studied (see Loison et al. Reference Loison, Festa-Bianchet, Gaillard, Jorgenson and Jean-Michel Jullien1999). In other ultrasocial mammals, knowledge or experiential learning histories are important and can be hugely disrupted by the loss of post-reproductive individuals (McComb et al. Reference McComb, Shannon, Durant, Sayialel, Slotow, Poole and Moss2011; Shannon et al. Reference Shannon, Slotow, Durant, Sayialel, Poole, Moss and McComb2013).

There has been even less research on insect senescence (see Uematsu et al. Reference Uematsu, Shimada and Shibao2013). In many groups, roles are partitioned and fertility can change (Amdam & Page Reference Amdam and Page2005). Neurophysiological change can be age-independent and some are even reversible (Seehuus et al. Reference Seehuus, Krekling and Amdam2006). Lifespan can be extended by as much as 10-fold as a result of external stress (see Omholt & Amdam Reference Omholt and Amdam2004).

The minutiae of insect and mammalian ultrasocietal success differ. Face-valid similarity may not reflect equivalent origins or likely consequences (see Feynman Reference Feynman1974). Common to terrestrial ultrasocieties are advanced nutritional support and economies of scale.

Human success stems from the capacity to both learn rapidly from as well as mould our environments. These capacities enable us to adapt to our immediate social milieu and ensure our adaptive fit to our culture. Our major weaknesses are engaging in intraspecies aggression and the massive growth in our post-reproductive populations.

As Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice, “All that glisters is not gold” (Merchant of Venice, Act II, Scene vii).