"By warning the colony of their deadly infection, terminally ill ants help the colony remain healthy and produce daughter colonies, which indirectly pass on the signaler’s genes to the next generation ...

For some would-be ant queens, the easiest way to take over a colony is to dupe its worker ants into committing regicide. The scientist E.O. Wilson once wrote that ants are the most warlike of all ...

The black parasitic ant tricks the workers into attacking their amber queen. Current Biology / Takasuka et al. Ants are no strangers to violence. Sometimes, an outsider queen will attack a colony’s ...

Biologist E.O. Wilson once wrote that "ants are the most warlike of all animals," noting that clashes between ant colonies dwarfed the human battles at Waterloo and Gettysburg. But sometimes ant ...

Scientists say they have for the first time unlocked how a parasitic ant uses chemical warfare to take over the nest of a different species, by tricking workers into an unlikely assassination. The ...

Scientists document a new form of host manipulation where an invading, parasitic ant queen "tricks" ant workers into killing their queen mother. The invading ant integrates herself into the nest by ...

The trajectory of life on Earth has always been predicated by genetic evolution, but two scientists from the University of Maine argue that culture is now the main force shaping our lives. A new study ...

Researchers have uncovered an unusual survival strategy in Iberian harvester ants that turns basic biology on its head: The queens can produce eggs that develop into two different ant species. A team ...

This 1930s documentary-style film provides a detailed look into the lives and behaviors of ants, focusing on their social structure, nest-building, and survival instincts. The footage captures a large ...

Zombies are among us. And these tiny undead creatures are everywhere. In this excerpt from "Rise of the Zombie Bugs" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025), author Mindy Weisberger examines the very ...

Meet the exploding ant, a tiny warrior hidden deep in the forests of Borneo. Their astonishing act of self-destruction unleashes a toxic blast, stopping predators in their tracks and redefining the ...