Unique set of duplicate DNA discovered in male hysterical greyhound ants

About the episode

The invasive greyhound ant – in English yellow crazy ant probably because of the hysterical movements they make when disturbed – has puzzled researchers around the world.

Not because of those wild moves, but because of their genes. The males of this ant appear to carry two different sets of DNA. Like what they are of two kinds. Such a double species is sometimes more common in other animals, but this is usually a mistake. This may once have been the case for this ant, but it is now an essential part of their existence.

The discovery solves a mystery studied for 15 years. Usually, ants reproduce by fertilization of eggs by males, or by asexual reproduction, involving a single parent: the queen. Female ants usually hatch from fertilized eggs, males of the unfertilized variety.

But in 2007, researchers discovered that male yellow crazy ants had mixed genes, as if they were made by two parents. Six years later, it was discovered that all the queens in a colony came from the same genetic line, but the worker ants in the colony came from a completely different line.

Among the males, they found that some males were related to the queen and others to the workers. It would make sense if there were two kinds of males in the colony, but they didn’t see it. Even when they studied the cells of the males, they found only one set of genes per cell. But… when they compared different cells IN the same ant with each other, they suddenly found cells with a different second genome.

This story does not end there, but the rest is a bit complicated. That these male ants have this in this way is unique in biology. Most researchers agree on this. Moreover, it raises many new questions. Those who want to go deeper will find links to online articles with audio, at the bottom of the text.

Learn more about research: Strange genomes of crazy ants are a biological first. Or here: These male ants have two distinct sets of DNA.