Workers are an integral part of ant societies, with most colonies unable to survive without them. But researchers recently confirmed that at least one ant species has evolved to not only survive but thrive without any workers, or males, for that matter.
Temnothorax kinomurai, a species of ant endemic to Japan, is unlike any ant species we know about. It consists only of queens and reproduces asexually, with the queens essentially creating clones of themselves from unfertilized eggs.
Scientists have been suspecting that T. kinomurai reproduces assexually for decades, but those suspicions were only recently confirmed by a team of Japanese-German researchers who took 43 queen eggs and bred the offspring in laboratory conditions, observing their behavior.
This unique ant species reproduces through a process called parthenogenesis, which has been observed in other insect species, but not in ants. Scientists believe that Temnothorax kinomurai, as a species, originated from a slave-making ancestor that relied on other species for labor, gradually losing its male workers and then developing parthenogenesis as a survival mechanism.
According to a recently published study, Temnothorax kinomurai survive by invading the colonies of a closely related ant species, Temnothorax makora, killing their queen and part of the workers, and using the surviving population to rear their own offspring.
“They exhibit an entirely new form of social organisation, adding another exciting dimension to the already rich and varied world of ants,” Dr Jurgen Heinz, from the University of Regensburg, in Germany, said. “This species may be considered the final step in the evolution of social parasitism, highlighting the enormous flexibility in the life histories of social insects.”
