However, it now turns out that the melting is caused not by volcanoes but by huge colonies of hotheaded ice borers deep under the ice. (discovermagazine.com)
The insect also likes a party: In late winter or early spring, these bugs sometimes form huge colonies, as wide as a yard, with millions of individuals migrating together like a superorganism, devouring the algae that grow on wet, decomposing leaf litter in the melting snow, Schulz explains. (scientificamerican.com)
Giant elephant seals haul out in huge colonies on beaches near Piedras Blancas Lighthouse, north of Cambria. (thepalomarinn.com)