Dominance interactions determine reproductive status in many animal societies, including many cooperatively breeding vertebrates and eusocial Hymenoptera without queen-worker dimorphism. Typically, ...

It’s not easy being a bug, especially one as small as an ant. The list of potential predators is lengthy for the diminutive creatures, so it’s no wonder they’ve developed an arsenal of defense ...

Researchers have developed a behavioral model that explains the complexity and diversity of social hierarchies in ants, and which scientists believe may help us understand the nature of other animal ...

For young ants at the pupal stage of life—caught between larva and adulthood—status is all about being heard. The findings, reported online on February 7 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, ...

OKINAWA, Japan, April 12 (UPI) --A group of researchers in Japan recently set out to uncover the evolution of hierarchy inside ant colonies. Why and how did a queen come be crowned? How does the same ...

How do some ants end up atop the colony's social hierarchy? An ant's parents appear to play a key role in determining whether the insect will develop into a queen or a common worker, according to a ...

In Brazilian ant colonies where a female has to fight her way to the top, she stays in power through some judicious gang violence, say researchers. When a Dinoponera quadriceps alpha ant smears a ...

In many animal species, physical battles and other aggressive acts determine a certain "pecking order." In the world of ants, fights that involve biting and restraining often determine winners and ...

Adult ants communicate with pheromones, touch and even sound. Now, researchers have discovered that developing ants, called pupae, have their own distinctive calls, which identify their social status ...