Researchers have found that the Iberian harvester ant queen rules over her own species, while simultaneously genetically hijacking another species to build out her workforce.
Published in Nature and covered by Gizmodo, the study reveals that queens of Messor ibericus secretly keep sperm from Messor structor males—ants they haven’t shared a gene pool with in over 5 million years.
They use this sperm to create hybrid worker clones. These hybrids do all the grunt work in the colony, leaving the pure-blooded Iberian offspring to handle the more royal duties.
The discovery stunned scientists. Senior study author and evolutionary biologist Jonathan Romiguier thought it was ridiculous. Speaking to Gizmodo, he recalled the moment he realized the lab results may not have been so absurd, and maybe could have led to an actual scientific hypothesis.
This happened after analyzing 65 ant colonies and watching a queen lay two sons, each from a different species.
Queen Ants Are Out Here Forcing Other Species to Breed Hybrid Clones
These hybrid worker ants aren’t recognized as one of their own by real M. structor colonies. The researchers tried dropping them into a structor nest, and they were promptly killed.
Turns out, even though they look like structor, they smell like ibericus. Clones built for labor, loyal to their queen, and doomed to be rejected by their genetic kin.
Hacking the genetic material of another species, using it to manufacture disposable helpers, and ensuring they’ll never defect because their own kind won’t take them back is straight up diabolical.
Ruthless. Sadistic. I would say inhuman, but they are quite literally inhuman, so maybe that’s too on the nose, but it still fits.
“It basically breaks many assumptions we had about what a species is,” Romiguier told Gizmodo. Yeah, no kidding. But more than that, I think this has all given me an excellent idea for a dystopian high fantasy book series about a vicious but cunning queen and her army of clones.
I’ll be sure to thank Romiguier and his team when I win a Hugo Award.
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