Ant Queen Wins Sperm Battle

Inter-species ant mating produces sterile workers for the colony.The mule may be the best known example of species interbreeding. But the famous offspring of the donkey and horse is sterile. A similar example of hybridization involving two different species of Harvester ant has recently been studied by Dr. Sara Helms Cahan, an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Vermont. The queens of one species will mate with a male of either species, but use the sperm from each in different ways. When one queen mates across her species, she takes advantage of the male who cannot tell the species apart. His sperm is used to produce sterile worker ants - like the mule - that she needs to build her colony. The offspring from mating with her own species become future queens.

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