The winning ant’s biology changes dramatically, with a longevity-linked enzyme called telomerase skyrocketing in her system, causing her to live much longer than she would have as a worker.

Scientists from the University of Copenhagen have revealed how a specific hormone regulates ant caste differentiation by phenotypic measurements of organ-level developmental changes and matching ...

A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) studied the turtle ant caste system, the natural order these ants maintain to create functioning social order.

The ant's caste system, for example, includes small workers for tending to the fungus garden and ant brood, medium-sized workers for harvesting fresh leaves, and larger soldiers; those capable of ...

Ant genomes reveal how social insects evolved cooperation, preserved caste genes, and rewired chromosomes over 100 million ...

Image of the Pogonomyrmex queens and males in a mating aggregation. After the rain, the males and young queens leave their nests to join a mating aggregation which usually comprises several ...

The existence of ant colonies was a mystery even to the famous naturalist Charles Darwin. How could evolution produce workers that cannot reproduce? Darwin assumed that workers increase the ...

What does it take to be a long-living queen? Change your gene expression, say researchers who analyzed both worker ant and queen ant genes in two ant species--making the humble bug the second social ...

In this video, the researchers explain how the ant caste system works. Eventually, Simola and his colleagues found just a few enzymes that regulated the behavior of those genes.

Its caste system includes two categories of workers: majors and minors. Major workers are nearly four times heavier than minors, but the minors outnumber them by 20 to 1.

By turning certain genes "on" or "off," Kr-h1 maintains the ant caste system by dictating that the ants will behave in the ways appropriate to their class (such as foraging for workers and ...

The ant's caste system, for example, includes small workers for tending to the fungus garden and ant brood, medium-sized workers for harvesting fresh leaves, and larger soldiers; those capable of ...