There's some linguistic ambiguity here. We can talk about "individual things" as in individual grains of sand, etc. and we mean "one instance of multiple similar".

Then there's "individuality", which for social animals means that a member of society is largely self-sufficient. Take any human and besides a sexual mate, they can pretty much survive, even thrive, by themselves. But take an ant, unless it's a queen, and it'll run around confused and die. The ant is inseparable from its hive. It is not an individual. It's a physically separate body from other members of the hive, but unable to exist on its own.