When a naked mole rat queen dies, that usually means war\u2014but not for this colony<\/p>\n
When their queen dies, naked mole rat females usually wage bloody battles of succession. But peace may be possible, a new study suggests<\/p>\n
By Jeanna Bryner<\/a> edited by Claire Cameron<\/a><\/p>\n Roxiller via Getty Images<\/p>\n Naked mole rat queens rule with an iron forepaw: these wrinkly, bucktoothed monarchs forbid any other female from reproducing\u2014that is, until they die and all hell breaks loose. Then the once-deferential females rise up and wage bloody battles against one another to vie for the crown. They attack other females, kill pups and wreak havoc until one emerges, dominant and victorious, to claim the throne and become the only breeding female in the colony.<\/p>\n But at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, something unexpected happened: a queen peacefully handed her power to one of her daughters, with no death or gore necessary.<\/p>\n \u201cWe found that naked mole rats are capable of peaceful queen succession, suggesting these animals have greater reproductive flexibility than previously appreciated,\u201d says Janelle Ayres, a molecular and systems physiologist at the Salk Institute who co-authored a study on the unusual succession<\/a>.<\/p>\n On supporting science journalism<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing<\/a>. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n Naked mole rats<\/a> are eusocial, which means they divide their colonies<\/a> into reproductive individuals and nonreproductive ones\u2014the support staff\u2014with the former consisting of a single female that can give birth. Similar hierarchies exist in beehives and ant colonies. It\u2019s a rigid strategy that works in relatively stable, predictable environments, such as the arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa, where naked mole rats reside in the wild, according to the new study\u2019s researchers.<\/p>\n But the arrangement isn\u2019t without risk. For instance, pups that carry a single female\u2019s genes are not necessarily diverse enough to ensure that some of those individuals will survive hardship from unexpected events, such as disease or an environmental catastrophe. And the queen\u2019s violent enforcement of her dominance is energetically costly and can lead to injuries, according to the researchers. So they wondered whether there might be any wiggle room in the hierarchy\u2014could these bloodthirsty creatures live and reproduce together?<\/p>\n \u201cFor years, we\u2019ve known that only one female, the queen, reproduces, and that queen succession occurs through violent queen wars,\u201d said study co-author Shanes Abeywardena, a postdoctoral researcher at Ayres\u2019s lab, in a statement<\/a>. \u201cWe wanted to see if multiple queens could peacefully exist.\u201d<\/p>\n Ayres, Abeywardena and their colleagues began their study in July 2019 with a small, well-functioning family comprised of a single queen named Ter\u00e9, a single reproductive male and their four pups, one of which was male. To simulate \u201cthe queen is dead\u201d\u2013type scenarios\u2014without getting rid of the reigning rodent\u2014the researchers created different scenarios that could change the queen\u2019s reproductive activity, from increasing the number of pups in her kingdom to relocating the colony. It was the relocation, when the researchers moved the family, called the Amigos colony, to a new vivarium, that led Ter\u00e9 to stop reproducing for almost a year.<\/p>\n After that, two of her daughters (siblings from a 2019 litter) began reproducing sequentially. One of them\u2014named Arwen\u2014peacefully assumed the role of sole baby-making queen at the end of 2025.<\/p>\n The study, published today in Science Advances, suggests a peaceful succession is indeed possible in one of the only eusocial (and most bloody) mammals, the researchers say.<\/p>\n It\u2019s Time to Stand Up for Science<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/a>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts<\/a>, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters<\/a>, must-watch videos, challenging games<\/a>, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. 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I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 15, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm When a naked mole rat queen dies,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-198588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Close-up](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/naked-mole-rat-queens.jpg\")
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