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 threadWinchell Chung ⚛🚀Oct 11

@annaleen @futurebird

That is just begging to be used in a science fiction story. Because yet again truth is stranger than fiction

Show threadFranchescaOct 11
@nyrath @annaleen @futurebird Martha Wells wrote a whole series about a civilization that did this cross species thing. I highly recommend.
Show threadCarl (He/Him)
@Frantasaur @nyrath @annaleen @futurebird Octavia Butler also had a series that had similarities. Decades ago. Also, she was Octavia Butler. (I love Wells, just bought one of her books. But Butler.)
Oct 11 at 1:52pmWeb
Show threadFranchescaOct 11
@nitpicking @nyrath @annaleen @futurebird yeh, I have just started on Butler myself, got a lovely hardback box set of the parable of the sower and the parable of the talents. The first one was a really tough read emotionally speaking, so I had to take a break before tackling the second!