Scientists don't know why the ant is covered in doorknob-like lumps. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Every queen needs a crown.

For Indian jumping ants (Harpegnathos saltator), becoming royalty is all about timing. If a larva gives signs of maturing into a queen at the wrong time, it is physically harassed into remaining a ...

It's not much to look at in the beginning. This is the first larval phase of a trap-jaw ant emerging from its egg. New research published in the journal Myrmecology News finds that trap-jaw ants ...

The larvae of many lycaenid butterflies (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) are tended by ants that protect them from natural enemies in return for sugar-rich secretions that the larvae produce to attract and ...

Life in an ant colony is a symphony of subtle interactions between insects acting in concert, more like cells in tissue than independent organisms bunking in a colony. Now, researchers have discovered ...

May 3 (UPI) --Researchers have identified the "princess pheromone" that tells a colony of ants when an ant larva will become the queen. A team from North Carolina State University studied Indian ...

Ant mothers are the queens of tough love. They simply don't have time to coddle their sick young. If a newly hatched black garden ant is exposed to a pathogen, researchers in the US have found the ...

Ant larvae are fighters. When ant nests are invaded by parasitic ants that hope to wipe out the original residents, larvae may try to protect their family by eating the invaders’ eggs. Some species of ...

The eggs of a parasitic ant queen living off a foreign species may end up as food for the larvae of the host species. In certain ant species, queens invade the colonies of other species, kill the host ...

One kind of tiny ant can serve as a monumental example for how to keep members of a community safe from pathogens. A new ...

Scientists have identified a 'princess pheromone' that tells an ant colony when a larva is preparing to become a queen. For Indian jumping ants (Harpegnathos saltator), becoming royalty is all about ...