In the clonal raider ant (Ooceraea biroi), workers in a colony alternate between caring for larvae and laying eggs in a coordinated cycle. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology ...

How complex ant societies emerged among ants’ solitary ancestors remains one of the big mysteries of social insect biology. Ants are eusocial, meaning that they have overlapping generations, ...

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 ...

A nutrient-rich liquid that could be produced by all ant species while the insects are in their pupal stage is consumed by adults and larvae. The creation of this fluid hadn’t been reported by ...

Parental-care behaviours include mammalian lactation to provide milk for offspring. The discovery that adult ants harvest nutritious fluid from pupae and give larvae this fluid reveals social feeding ...

Researchers have discovered a brood pheromone released by larvae of clonal raider ants that temporarily suppresses egg-laying in adult ants. Previous studies have shown that the presence of larvae is ...

The Lise Meitner Group Social Behavior, led by Yuko Ulrich, is conducting research on a special ant species: the clonal raider ant Ooceraea biroi. This ant species does not have queens. Instead, all ...

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology have discovered a brood pheromone released by larvae of clonal raider ants that temporarily suppresses egg-laying in adult ants. A new ...