Congratulations to Professor Wang on winning the Fields Medal (Nobel Prize for Math). Only the 3rd woman in history to win. And she won for a preprint article! We have some ways to go in biology before preprints receive this level of impact and recognition.

Quanta Magazine@quantamagazine.org · 2w ago

Hong Wang, who proved the three-dimensional Kakeya set conjecture, has just won the Fields Medal, making her the third woman in the award’s 90-year history to receive math’s highest honor. Read our profile: www.quantamagazine.org/hong-wang-wi...

Our study on complex cryptic co-infections of Spiroplasma in European Myrmica ants is now published with @tparmentier.bsky.social @emmavanreempts.bsky.social @selfishmeme.bsky.social Tessa, Wouter and Diego doi.org/10.1111/mec.... .

Entomologists and particle accelerator physicists have collaborated to produce a new 3D atlas of what makes up an ant, including muscles, nerves, digestive tracts, and exoskeletons. The images are free to access. spectrum.ieee.org/3d-scanning-...

Very important paper for people working on supergenes, particularly in ants: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Repeated evolution of supergenes on an ancient social chromosome

Lajmi et al. describe a novel supergene associated with social structure in desert ants. Surprisingly, this supergene evolved on an ancient chromosome that also evolved an analogous supergene in fire ...

cell.com

Queen-only parasitic parthogenetic ant. Cool combination! www.cell.com/current-biol...

A parasitic, parthenogenetic ant with only queens and without workers or males

Hamaguchi, Kinomura and colleagues describe an ant species that lacks workers and males and consists exclusively of queens.

cell.com

Happy Darwin Day to all! To celebrate can you comment with your favorite paper on evolutionary biology from the last few years? Whatever comes to mind and whichever paper that really changed your view of evolution.

New work from @miyapan.bsky.social and our team, bringing ant, bee, and wasp labs together. @chuanxinyu.bsky.social shows that the ANTSR locus we discovered in ants has determined sex for 150+ My across bees and stinging wasps 🐜🐝, despite virtually no sequence conservation 😮 doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

I spend a fair amount of time talking about this amazing ant paper from last year: www.nature.com/articles/s41... where the females produce offspring of two different species! Wild! 🐜

One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants - Nature

In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in males from the same moth...

nature.com

The Perfect Specimen@perfect-specimen.bsky.social · 7mo ago

This week's episode is WILD. Enjoy @nhcooper123.bsky.social explaining how incredibly complex and amazing biology can be, and @joshlukedavis.com sharing some wild stories of some of his favourite species. A nice Mediterranean thread running through this too! www.youtube.com/watch?v=prVe... 🐘 🐝🥬🐜.

No contest. Just read the first two sentences of the abstract. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Dmitri Petrov@petrovadmitri.bsky.social · 8mo ago

All right it’s time for the annual “please tell us about one (or a few if you are ambitious) paper from 2025 that really impressed you and why we should all read it“! Go! If you tell us how it changed your view of the world and what makes it so powerful and consequential It would be excellent.

Asteroids, antibiotics and ants: a year of remarkable science www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Asteroids, antibiotics and ants: a year of remarkable science

Highlights from News & Views published in 2025.

nature.com

The strangest ant reproduction yet 🐜 Some Messor ants make workers that are hybrids of two species, ensuring a stable workforce when environment cues fail. Learn more with @selfishmeme.bsky.social in our FREE Brad Ashby Memorial Lecture (29 Jan 2026). Register: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1970355572...

New @royentsoc.bsky.social #ResearchHighlight available! Recent work by Juvé et al. in #RESSystematicEnt reveals the evolutionary history of Messor harvester ants, a genus adapted to arid environments & with some of the most complex reproductive systems known so far. Read more ⬇️ buff.ly/xGeFrKr

Passionnante découverte : une étude conduite à Montpellier montre qu’une même fourmi peut donner naissance à des individus de deux espèces différentes. C’est la xénoparité, qui s’ajoute à la grande diversité des modes de reproduction chez ces insectes. www.mediapart.fr/journal/ecol...

Des fourmis peuvent donner naissance à des fourmis… d’une autre espèce

Coup de pied dans la fourmilière du vivant : une étude conduite à Montpellier montre qu’une même fourmi peut donner naissance à des individus de deux espèces différentes. C’est la xénoparité, qui s’a…

mediapart.fr

Cross-species cloning in ants 🐜 These two males belong to different species—but share the same mother. How? Why? To celebrate the print release of our last paper in this week’s @nature.com (issue 8084), here’s a thread summarizing the results. Why? Let’s dive in🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The #OpenAccess #EditorsChoice article for the issue reports on the #phylogenomics of Messor harvester #ants (Hymenoptera: #Formicidae: Stenammini), and unravels their biogeographical origin and #diversification patterns. Why not give it a read? doi.org/10.1111/syen.12693 @selfishmeme.bsky.social

🐜 Une nouvelle étude révèle un phénomène inédit dans le règne animal : certaines reines donnent naissance à des mâles d’une autre espèce. Ce mécanisme appelé « xénoparité » permet à leurs colonies de survivre. Explications avec des GIF de fourmis ⬇️

Chez les fourmis moissoneuses, des reines enfantent des mâles d’une autre espèce

Une nouvelle étude révèle un phénomène inédit dans le règne animal : certaines reines donnent naissance à des mâles d’une autre espèce. Ce mécanisme appelé « xénoparité » permet à leurs colonies de su...

radiofrance.fr

Thanks to @cjgiaimo.bsky.social for this nice article in @nytimes.com (www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/s...) about our last study (www.nature.com/articles/s41...)

These Ants Found a Loophole for a Fundamental Rule of Life

nytimes.com

A new Science study of ants in Fiji—involving genomic sequencing of over 4000 ant specimens from museum collections—shows that most native species have been in decline since humans first arrived in the archipelago 3000 years ago. https://scim.ag/489mI2o

Genomic signatures indicate biodiversity loss in an endemic island ant fauna

Insect populations have declined worldwide, but the extent and drivers of these declines are debated. Most studies rely on field surveys performed in the past century, leaving gaps in our understandin...

science.org

If you’ve heard about our study on ants producing two different species but are still confused about how it works (and don’t have time to read the paper), this 10-minute video made by @bengthomas.bsky.social is very informative: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-O4... Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Ants That Broke Biology

YouTube video by 7 Days of Science

youtube.com

Biology Department xkcd.com/3140/

Hybridization and introgression are major evolutionary processes. Since the 1940s, the prevailing view has been that they shape plants far more than animals. In our new study (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... ), we find the opposite: animals exchange genes more, and for longer, than plants

The new XKCD has to be a reference to the ant paper where ants just casually lay eggs of a different species, yes? Maybe? There are so many weird bugs its hard to know.

A common type of ant in Europe breaks a fundamental rule in biology: its queens can produce male offspring that are a whole different species go.nature.com/4mOb5T9

‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother

Ant queens of one species clone ants of another to create hybrid workers that do their bidding.

go.nature.com

Be sure to check Poster number 100 with Alice Ha at #ESEB2025 if you fancy crazy reproductive systems

New #OpenAccess work in #RESSystematicEnt finds #phylogenomics of #Messor harvester ants (Hymenoptera: #Formicidae: Stenammini) unravels their biogeographical origin and #diversification patterns doi.org/10.1111/syen.12693 #Biogeography @selfishmeme.bsky.social @gkergoat.bsky.social @wiley.com

New article about Messor harvester ant phylogeny and evolution funded by @erc.europa.eu in @isemevol.bsky.social resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Phylogenomics of Messor harvester ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Stenammini) unravels their biogeographical origin and diversification patterns

Phylogenomic analysis of 2524 ultraconserved-element loci from 58 Messor harvester ant species helps in redefining taxonomic groups of the genus. Messor ants emerged in the Irano-Indian area around ...

resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Incredible organisation ! I ♥️ Lille. x.com/CRouxEvo/statu…

Huge colony of Messor barbarus in the @MuseumOrleans. I'll answer to visitor questions this Sunday!

If you search a postdoc and would like to work on crispr-cas9 technologies, genomics and ants, consider to apply to this position for the ERC Starting Grant RoyalMess : emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/UMR…

"Tapeworm infestation gives lowly ants long life#science #feedly nature.com/articles/d4158…