@llewelly this is making me think of questions that I haven’t before: why aren’t there any ants that fly? (You can say “those are bees,” but that’s not what I mean.) Why aren’t there any eusocial insects with the metaplural gland and scapes: closely related to ants that ever retained or decided to re-adapt their wings? is there something about the nature of eusociality of ants that makes wings a problem?

@llewelly The infamous “wasp to ant pipeline” it all starts with communal nesting advantages and next thing you know you have 8 casts and can only survive on mushrooms.

@futurebird
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wow what an interesting thought. I have no idea. I guess wings would be a problem for the stereotypical ant nest of tunnels, but of course not all ants live in tunnels. Army ants don't, although they did ancestrally. And bees manage it somehow.

@futurebird @llewelly

Hmmm. I must have missed something.
Courtesy of riveredgenaturecenter.org.

@Sunny @llewelly

I was thinking more of flying to forage. Most ants still fly to reproduce.

@Sunny @llewelly

Also queen ants can't wait to get those wings off. They must really get in the way.

@llewelly

Hm. Dr Christine Sosiak is in NJ. I might email her about some of my criticism about a paper on ants from "Cell" that I read a few weeks back. I'm just a little skeptical of the way they observed ant behavior, even though some of the biology went over my head.

@futurebird @Sunny
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exactly. In every bee or wasp video I've seen of bees or wasps inside a hive, it's always clear the wings are a problem, they take care to avoid getting them caught on things, and they're always having to be careful of their wings in one way or another.