Queens of some ant species have evolved an unusually hostile mode for colony takeover: they infiltrate colonies of other ant species and manipulate the worker ants into killing their own queen — their mother — then accepting the intruding queen as their new leader, according to a recent study. In the world of ants, where battles over territory and resources are common, this is a rare example of matricide, or “the killing of a mother by her own genetic offspring,” researchers say. The researchers observed such matricide-inducing behavior in two parasitic ant species: Lasius orientalis and Lasius umbratus. Ants rely mainly on chemical signals to communicate and tell friends and foes apart. The parasitic queens of L. orientalis and L. umbratus use that to their advantage. “Ants live in the world of odors,” Keizo Takasuka, study co-author from Kyushu University, Japan, said in a statement. “Before infiltrating the nest, the parasitic queen stealthily acquires the colony’s odor on her body from workers walking outside so that she is not recognized as the enemy.” Once inside the colony, the parasitic queen covertly approaches the resident queen and sprays her with abdominal fluid that the researchers suspect is formic acid. “When they get attacked, ants often spray the intruder with formic acid as a way of alerting other ants in the colony,” Daniel Kronauer, a researcher of insect societies at Rockefeller University, U.S., who wasn’t involved in the study, told Live Science. “So, it makes a lot of sense that this would…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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