The Harpegnathos jumper, also called the Indian jumping ant , is a species of ant found in this vast country. Now, new research has discovered that they can experience incredibly dramatic changes in their physique previously unknown in insects: they can shrink their brains and grow their ovaries in order to save the colony should it die.
And is that, for most colonies of ants, if the queen, which is the one that lays all the eggs, dies, the colony also usually dies with her, since the rest of ants are sterile. However, for this species of ants, it is well worth losing a little of their brain for the sake of putting on the crown, especially since the brain can grow back later. This is quite an amazing turn in the lives of these strange forest-dwelling creatures.
Ritual combat
Unlike other species of ants, Indian jumping ants do not die with their queens. And how is the new matriarch chosen ? In single antenna combat, who will decide who will be the next to wear the crown. The victorious female will expand her ovaries and shrink her brain to three-quarters of its original size. Of course, if the “pseudo-queen” status of a worker is revoked in some way, their bodies can return to their original state, exposes the study that has been published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences .
“They have this ability to completely transform into adulthood, and that makes them interesting to try to understand,” says Clint Penick of Kennesaw State University and leader of the work.
The process of change
The new queen, winner of the ritualized combat in which the antennae are stuck like a duel to the death, see their life expectancy increase from about six months to five years . Your ovaries swell up to five times more, filling your entire abdomen driven by a cascade of hormones with a burst of dopamine , and your brain shrinks between 20% and 25%, which researchers suspect is a process designed to divert resources. limited to egg production.
From this moment on, they will become egg-making machines and will never leave the nest or see the light of day again. As they will no longer need to hunt, take care of the larvae or defend the nest, all their needs will be taken care of by the rest of the colony.
According to the authors, they estimate that in a colony of 100 ants, between five and ten females will become new queens.
The scientists verified with 30 colonies that, in addition, the effects were reversible, since once the new isolated queens stopped laying eggs, they returned to behave like workers.
Referencia: Clint A. Penick et al. Reversible plasticity in brain size, behavior and physiology characterizes caste transitions in a socially flexible ant ( Harpegnathos saltator ), Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2021). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2021.0141
