{"id":42683,"date":"2025-11-17T19:05:40","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T19:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/42683\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T19:05:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T19:05:40","slug":"research-reveals-ants-use-chemical-warfare-to-kill-their-queens-national-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/42683\/","title":{"rendered":"Research reveals ants use \u2018chemical warfare\u2019 to kill their queens | National"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ants use<\/a> ‘chemical warfare’ to compel host workers to kill their own queen, reveals new research.<\/p>\n

Scientists have observed for the first time an invading ant queen using a chemical spray to compel host workers into murdering their own mother.<\/p>\n

They explained that in the ruthless world of parasitic ants<\/a>, taking over a host colony is a matter of life and death.<\/p>\n

The conventional understanding had been that an invading queen must physically fight and kill the resident queen to seize control.<\/p>\n

But the new study, published in the journal Current Biology<\/a>, details a more “sinister” strategy – a parasitic ant queen that chemically manipulates the host colony\u2019s workers into executing their own mother.<\/p>\n

Corresponding author Assistant Professor Keizo Takasuka, of Kyushu University<\/a> in Japan, said: \u201cThe initial discovery was made by my friend Taku Shimada, the first author of the paper, who has been passionate about ants since childhood and runs a popular blog called \u2018AntRoom.\u2019<\/p>\n

“He observed the colony infiltration and posted about it in 2021.<\/p>\n

\"pexels-syed-rajeeb-307384-928276\"<\/p>\n

(Photo by Syed Rajeeb via Pexels)<\/p>\n

By Talker<\/p>\n

\u201cI found the post three years later and was so astonished.<\/p>\n

“I thought it was a very valuable discovery that deserved to be documented as academic knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says the chemical manipulation was documented in two distantly related species of parasitic ants and their hosts: Lasius orientalis, which infiltrates the nests of Lasius flavus; and Lasius umbratus, which invades the colonies of Lasius japonicus.<\/p>\n

Dr. Takasuka said: \u201cThe parasitic behavior of the latter species of ants was discovered by Yuji Tanaka, who is the second author of this study.<\/p>\n

“He is another enthusiastic amateur of ants and followed the same observational methods established by Shimada,\u201d<\/p>\n

In the case of Lasius orientalis, he says the parasite sprayed the host colony queen repeatedly, about 15 times over 20 hours.<\/p>\n

That slowly agitated the host workers, who began attacking their queen, eventually mutilating and killing her after four days.<\/p>\n

But the Lasius umbratus queen used only two targeted sprays.<\/p>\n

The researchers said that it was enough to incite an “immediate and fatal attack” from the host workers, who proceeded to dismember their queen.<\/p>\n

\"pexels-heather-smith-46192-170389\"<\/p>\n

(Photo by Heather Smith via Pexels)<\/p>\n

By Talker<\/p>\n

In both cases, after the matricide, the host workers accepted the parasitic queen, who soon began laying her own eggs to be cared for by the orphaned colony.<\/p>\n

The research team suggests the fluid was formic acid – a well-known defensive compound used by many ant species to deter predators or as a warning signal to fellow nestmates.<\/p>\n

In that context, they say it appears to act as a “deceptive” social signal.<\/p>\n

Dr. Takasuka said: \u201cIn both cases, the host and parasite belong to the same genus, so they both have formic acid and recognize it as a danger signal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that when their queen is suddenly covered in a large amount of this chemical, the workers perceive their own mother as a colony-threatening crisis which triggers their aggressive defensive behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

To get close enough to perform the manipulation, the parasite must first bypass the colony\u2019s guards.<\/p>\n

The researchers replicated that step in their experiments through a process called host-odour pre-acquisition.<\/p>\n

\"pexels-jimbear-2415291\"<\/p>\n

(Photo by Jimmy Chan via Pexels)<\/p>\n

By Talker<\/p>\n

Dr. Takasuka said: \u201cDirect infiltration would fail because the workers would immediately perceive the intruder and attack her.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo achieve this, the parasitic queen was housed with a few host workers and cocoons.<\/p>\n

“After just one night, she acquired the host colony\u2019s specific scent, providing a chemical camouflage that was essential for her to get past the initial defences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though the two parasitic ant species are not close relatives, the researchers say they share the same genus that is known to have two discrete origins of social parasitism.<\/p>\n

Dr. Takasuka explains that the behaviors are an example of “convergent evolution” – where similar traits develop independently between unrelated species.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cMy own research focuses on how parasitoid wasps manipulate the behavior of spiders, so I know that in the natural world, parasitic organisms utilize many various and interesting strategies to infect their hosts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis discovery in ants is another fascinating example.”<\/p>\n

Dr. Takasuka added: “I am interested in investigating these different host-killing strategies to understand the evolutionary pressures that drive them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ants use ‘chemical warfare’ to compel host workers to kill their own queen, reveals new research. Scientists have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[1457,24562,24565,24567,24568,24566,8125,9,24,63,24563,24564,122,124,123,24520,2196],"class_list":{"0":"post-42683","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-ant","10":"tag-apocrita","11":"tag-biological-interactions","12":"tag-host-biology","13":"tag-hymenoptera","14":"tag-insects","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-parasitism","19":"tag-parasitoid","20":"tag-queens","21":"tag-queens-headlines","22":"tag-queens-news","23":"tag-stephen-beech","24":"tag-zoology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42683","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=42683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}