Termite Queens Are Doin' It For Themselves

While the Eurythmics and Aretha Franklin were singing about female empowerment in the human species, they'd probably approve of this termite queen's activities. When it comes time for aging queens of the Japanese species Reticulitermes speratus to produce replacement queens, they don't bother to mate with their king and instead produce their daughters asexually, in a process called parthenogenesis.