Worker ants that get too big for their britches and attempt to reproduce in a colony ruled by a queen are attacked by fellow colony members, according to a new study. By ant colony conventions, worker ants are supposed to give up procreating themselves in favor of taking care of the queen's eggs. Researchers found that the occasional cheating worker ant gives off a distinct "fertility pheromone" that notifies other ants and incurs their wrath. Entomologist Les Greenberg said, "
The study is a fascinating example of how social insects maintain order in their societies" [National Geographic News]
. The queen ant is the only fertile female in an ant colony. Worker ants are mostly sterile females, but they
are biologically capable of a type of parthenogenesis, the process that allows a female to produce offspring without a mate. When they try, however, they produce chemicals called pheromones that their ...
