Mycocepurus smithii ants tending their fungus garden. These are the only known completely asexual ants in the world. (Credit: Photo courtesy of Alex Wild /
Posted on 01/09/2010 11:04:07 AM PST by JoeProBono
The complete asexuality of a widespread fungus-gardening ant, the only ant species in the world known to have dispensed with males entirely, has been confirmed by a team of Texas and Brazilian researchers.
Most social insects—the wasps, ants and bees—are relatively used to daily life without males. Their colonies are well run by swarms of sterile sisters lorded over by an egg-laying queen. But, eventually, all social insect species have the ability to produce a crop of males who go forth in the world to fertilize new queens and propagate.
Queens of the ant Mycocepurus smithii reproduce without fertilization and males appear to be completely absent, report Christian Rabeling, Ulrich Mueller and their Brazilian colleagues in PLoS ONE this week.
"Animals that are completely asexual are relatively rare, which makes this is a very interesting ant," says Rabeling, an ecology, evolution and behavior graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin. "Asexual species don't mix their genes through recombination, so you expect harmful mutations to accumulate over time and for the species to go extinct more quickly than others. They don't generally persist for very long over evolutionary time.".....
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Mycocepurus smithii ants tending their fungus garden. These are the only known completely asexual ants in the world. (Credit: Photo courtesy of Alex Wild /
paging gloria steinem!!!
Must have gotten married.
>>Must have gotten married<<
to my ex-wife.
The last photo looks like ‘Memories of Woodstock’.
The sex probably wasn’t that great in the first place...
Researchers also noticed these ants have the smallest turkey-basters they have ever seen....
Do we HAVE to bring my nieces and nephews into this?
;-)
Not THIS ant...
My uncle isn’t taking it so well.
That’s a turmite, not an ant. ;^)
“Their colonies are well run by swarms of sterile sisters lorded over by an egg-laying queen.”
Not at all like THIS place: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtcSYPjJbgg
sounds like the democRATS to me....
We humans have a few well-known places like this where females rule. They’re called ‘’colleges’’and ‘’universities’’ They have names like “Vassar’’, “Smith’’ and “Bryn Mawr’’. Why these place haven’t seen males....at all! Ever! :-)
"Come on! She's kinda hot! Ah'd do her, if Ah weren't married."
"Asexual species don't mix their genes through recombination, so you expect harmful mutations to accumulate over time and for the species to go extinct more quickly than others. They don't generally persist for very long over evolutionary time."Thanks JoeProBono, bfl.
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