Annalee Newitz 🍜Oct 11

I cannot stop thinking about this paper about how Iberian harvester ants can produce offspring of two entirely different species. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02524-8

cc: @futurebird

Ant queens produce sons of two distinct species

The discovery of an unusual reproductive system for one ant species solves a long-standing puzzle about a missing population of another ant species.

Show threadDavid Moles
@annaleen “This pathway seems analogous to domestication, as M. ibericus co-opted M. structor males into its life cycle, maintaining them as a clonal lineage rather than exploiting them from the wild” it’s like Sherri S. Tepper wrote a Star Trek TOS episode
Oct 11 at 1:37pmWeb
Show threadDavid MolesOct 11
@annaleen “evolving from sexual parasitism to sexual co-dependency” aren’t we all, babe, aren’t we all