Rockefeller University biologists have discovered ants that do not work due to mutations, but parasitize their counterparts in their own or someone else’s colony. The results of the research have been published magazine current biology
Scientists have discovered a uterus-like mutant in the clonal ant colony of Ooceraea biroi. They usually reproduce asexually without a queen.
Apparently, this is due to a mutation in the super gene that combines more than 200 genes responsible for hormone metabolism. Such changes result in an insect with wings, big eyes, and ovaries in the colony. They reproduce asexually and, as a rule, the offspring retain the “broken” genes.
Researchers have found that such ants reproduce twice as often as their counterparts. However, their population is controlled: if there are not enough ants to serve the so-called queens, then some of them die in the pupal stage.
Such mutations can also occur in other ant species, the scientists say. Probably, in the future, scientists will have to separate them into a separate species.