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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.
By
  1. Jessica Purcell

    1. Jessica Purcell is in the Department of Entomology, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, California 92521, USA.

Ants are known for their complex societies, but the group deserves to be just as famous among animals for their often strange and unconventional reproductive strategies. Writing in Nature, Juvé et al.1 provide evidence that this weirdness reaches unexpected heights in the Iberian harvester ant (Messor ibericus). The authors report that this species has hijacked the genome of another ant species to produce worker ants. Rather than risk depending on a population of this other species to achieve their reproductive goals, M. ibericus queen ants have gained the remarkable ability to produce two types of male offspring: males of their own species and ones that are, genetically speaking, members of a distinct species.

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Nature 646, 289-290 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-02524-8

References

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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