The fight of the sexes in ants

The sperm of the ants Wasmannia auropunctata destroys the DNA of the female in the fertilized eggs, so that the ants born from these eggs only have paternal genes, which are therefore paternal clones.

With this strategy the genes of males survive and the gene diversity remains. The queen also makes her clones so that the genes of the females remain.

The discovery has been surprised by a group of researchers from the Belgian open university, who were actually researching topics such as W, influenced by human activities. In French Guiana the colonies of Auropunctata were being compared with those that do not exist.

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Eusko Jaurlaritzako Industria, Merkataritza eta Turismo Saila