This oughta really wind up the wingnuts.
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This oughta really wind up the wingnuts.
"Living organisms are assumed to produce same-species offspring1,2. Here, we report a shift from this norm in Messor ibericus, an ant that lays individuals from two distinct species. In this life cycle, females must clone males of another species because they require their sperm to produce the worker caste. As a result, males from the same mother exhibit distinct genomes and morphologies, as they belong to species that diverged over 5 million years ago. The evolutionary history of this system appears as sexual parasitism3 that evolved into a natural case of cross-species cloning4,5, resulting in the maintenance of a male-only lineage cloned through distinct species’ ova. We term females exhibiting this reproductive mode as xenoparous, meaning they give birth to other species as part of their life cycle."
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F myrmepropagandist shared this topic
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This oughta really wind up the wingnuts.
"Living organisms are assumed to produce same-species offspring1,2. Here, we report a shift from this norm in Messor ibericus, an ant that lays individuals from two distinct species. In this life cycle, females must clone males of another species because they require their sperm to produce the worker caste. As a result, males from the same mother exhibit distinct genomes and morphologies, as they belong to species that diverged over 5 million years ago. The evolutionary history of this system appears as sexual parasitism3 that evolved into a natural case of cross-species cloning4,5, resulting in the maintenance of a male-only lineage cloned through distinct species’ ova. We term females exhibiting this reproductive mode as xenoparous, meaning they give birth to other species as part of their life cycle."
@Doug_Bostrom @futurebird This is so so cool. As always, humans create their careful, neat categories, and then biology comes along like a sailor on a shore leave bender.
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@Doug_Bostrom @futurebird This is so so cool. As always, humans create their careful, neat categories, and then biology comes along like a sailor on a shore leave bender.
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This oughta really wind up the wingnuts.
"Living organisms are assumed to produce same-species offspring1,2. Here, we report a shift from this norm in Messor ibericus, an ant that lays individuals from two distinct species. In this life cycle, females must clone males of another species because they require their sperm to produce the worker caste. As a result, males from the same mother exhibit distinct genomes and morphologies, as they belong to species that diverged over 5 million years ago. The evolutionary history of this system appears as sexual parasitism3 that evolved into a natural case of cross-species cloning4,5, resulting in the maintenance of a male-only lineage cloned through distinct species’ ova. We term females exhibiting this reproductive mode as xenoparous, meaning they give birth to other species as part of their life cycle."
@Doug_Bostrom @futurebird Having read this morning about two miracles attributed to Carlo Acutis, who was canonized by Pope Leo, I think many would consider this momma ant giving birth to a baby ant of a different species to be subjectively more miraculous than Acutis’ dubious feats of healing.
