Study confirms decades-long assumption about rare ant species

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7777980

A new study has now provided the first proof of an ant species that lacks both workers and males and consists exclusively of queens.

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  • reallykindasorta@slrpnk.netEnglish
    0·
    19 hours ago

    Cloning!

    Note: Typically ‘workers’ are non sexually reproducing females for ants

    They then analysed the queen ants under a microscope and found that their mating structures were not used, essentially indicating that the offspring were all clones.

    After observing multiple colonies and multiple populations of the species, researchers confirmed that the species completely lacked workers and males.

    “Our data therefore suggest that the life history of T. kinomurai is characterised by the unique combination of workerless parasitism and parthenogenesis, i.e., the ability to produce female offspring from unfertilised eggs,” scientists wrote in the study published in the journal Current Biology.

    • protist@mander.xyzEnglish
      0·
      11 hours ago

      Yeah I read it, I’m saying that if an animal is only reproducing via cloning forever, it’s an evolutionary dead end, because they will have completely lost the ability to adapt to environmental changes

      • gid@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        0·
        9 hours ago

        No necessarily: mutations will still happen. But there will not be any genetic crossing over that will contribute to greater variance.