New research reveals a disturbing aspect of ant colonies: worker ants can be manipulated to kill their own queen. Parasitic queens employ chemical signals to alter the host colony's scent, causing ...

For some would-be ant queens, the easiest way to take over a colony is to dupe its worker ants into committing regicide. The scientist E.O. Wilson once wrote that ants are the most warlike of all ...

Groups of social animals, including humans, can make complex decisions without a single central leader. Those choices aren't always made by the majority, however. In fact, a relatively small number of ...

Scientists have discovered that a new form of ant society spread across species. They found that after the new form of society evolved in one species, a 'social supergene' carrying the instruction-set ...

Invasive tawny crazy ants have been wreaking havoc across the U.S. Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas, disrupting ecosystems and causing headaches for homeowners. Now scientists at The University of ...

New research shows that terminally ill baby ants tell other ants to kill them, potentially protecting the rest of the colony from their infection. In a study published today in the journal Nature ...

A Squamellaria plant grows on a tree in Fiji. As an epiphyte, its roots don't attach to the ground, so it needs to find an alternate source for nutrients rather than the soil. G. Chomicki High in the ...