Do you ever think your sibling comes from a different species entirely?
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Children usually look like their parents! But… what about ants?
Yannick Juvé and team from the University of Montpellier played Maurie Povich for harvester ants.
Ant males from the same queen didn’t look alike. DNA tests revealed why: they were two different species. You are NOT the father!
The queen mates with males from multiple species. Some eggs ditch the mother’s DNA, and the sperm makes a clone of itself. This leads to producing sons of the other species!
That flips biology on its head. Now, meet my mother from another brother!
Reference: Juvé, Y., Lutrat, C., Ha, A., Weyna, A., Lauroua, E., Afonso Silva, A. C., Roux, C., Schifani, E., Galkowski, C., Lebas, C., Allio, R., Stoyanov, I., Galtier, N., Schlick-Steiner, B. C., Steiner, F. M., Baas, D., Kaufmann, B., & Romiguier, J. (2025). One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants. Nature. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-094