The queens in colonies of social insects, such as ants, bees, and wasps, are considered the veritable embodiment of specialization in the animal kingdom. The common perception is that the queen's only ...

A few months ago, I awoke to find a streak spanning the length of my kitchen wall that looked like it had been drawn there ...

In many animals, including ants, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) ensures normal brain function by controlling the movement of various substances in and out of the brain. Now, researchers have made the ...

Ant foraging behaviour is a paradigmatic example of sophisticated social coordination in the animal kingdom. Central to their success is the use of chemical signals, particularly trail pheromones, ...

In eusocial superorganisms like leafcutter ant colonies, labor is divvied up according to body shape and size, but Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor Shelley Berger and her team discovered ...

Professors from the University of Trento have studied ant behavior to understand how these insects navigate efficiently ...

Despite having identical genes, carpenter worker ants vary wildly in their behaviors and appearances. Major workers fight off predators and are bulkier than minor workers that gather food and tend to ...

The takeover relies on a chemical spray that masks the host queen’s scent as an enemy New study reveals a rare, sophisticated form of social parasitism with no benefit to the queen mother or her ...

Invasive tawny crazy ants have been wreaking havoc across the U.S. Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas, disrupting ecosystems and causing headaches for homeowners. Now scientists at The University of ...

Natural selection doesn't get to pick where on the chromosome a gene is. It's just random, right? Natural selection just picks based on traits. So how did it get to be that all the genes for trait X ...