Cloning In The Animal Kingdom

tanveer1979 writes "The New Scientist is carrying an interesting article on cloning in nature." From the article: "The ant Wasmannia Auropunctata, which is native to Central and South America but has spread into the US and beyond, has opted for a unique stand-off in the battle of the sexes. Both queens and males reproduce by making genetically identical copies of themselves - so males and females seem to have entirely separate gene pools. Conventional reproduction happens only to produce workers. This is the first instance in the animal kingdom where males reproduce exclusively by cloning, though male honeybees do it occasionally." National Geographic is also carrying the story.

Comments

cloning uncommon?

[evenprime]

Conventional reproduction happens only to produce workers.

But aren't most of the ants in a colony workers?

Re:cloning uncommon?

[Mad Merlin]

But aren't most of the ants in a colony workers?

One would think so, perhaps these ants aren't like the other ants in this respect too?

Re:cloning uncommon?

[ZosX]

That is correct. They are also sterile too AFAIK. I believe that the workers are by definition female, but incapable of reproducing. The male ants really only exist to mate with the queen to create more female workers. I'm sure they have some other small functions, but not much else. In the event of a queen dying in a bee's nest, I believe that the male bees have a way of producing another female queen, but I forget how it works. (Its been years since I read about bees)

Bees and ants are some of the most fascinating creatures on the planet in a lot of ways. They almost seem to posess a collective conscious and part of that is the ability for them to communicate with each other in a rapid efficient manner.

Basically the queen in a nest of either species exists mostly to reproduce. Everything else exists to support that. The workers take care of and feed their larvae young. Ever see ants carrying little white things that look like rice? That is them moving their larvae about. The nests they build are amazingly well developed. Ditto for bees.

If you ever get a chance you should search google for bits of info on the supercolony of ants that has pretty much migrated across huge swaths of europe. It seems that the colony is completely interconnected as the ants all cooperate. In a lot of ways, it is the Borg of ant colonies.

Bugs are weird. Lets hope they never start hating humans. We'd lose really quick.

Re:cloning uncommon?

[Troed]

I think you'd be interested in Coalescent: Homo Superior if you haven't already read it of course.

Human hives possible?

To answer your question further....

[ZosX]

The queen also can produce both males and potentially other queens. In bees, when another queen is hatched and matured it will likely challenge the existing queen and the winner will continue the hive. Survival of the fittest indeed. I'd imagine it works similarily with ants. The queen is usually the key because she makes all the other ants. What is different here is that the queen is cloning herself and so are the males, that is, if they can prove this theory. Perhaps the fireants are evolving into a super colony themselves.

Human hives are already here....

[ZosX]

In a lot of ways I think that the above is true. However, I don't really know if the hive mentality would ever really truly fit for humans though as they tend to show many more tendancies towards the herd or the pack mentality. Once you start thinking of most humans as sheep, the world starts making more sense and starts becoming a lot more depressing. Face it. People just don't want to think about the world and what is going on in it. I know that there are exceptions, but most people do not want the responsibility that comes with knowledge of their world and are much more content sitting in the comfort of their low crime cookie-cutter suburb watching network television than worrying about all hte really terrible things that are happening to people all over the globe.

Hell, if people would just start thinking of how much freaking garbage they produce on a weekly basis and the big fucking hole in the woods that someone dug and lined with plastic to dump it all...oh hell, what's the fucking use?

No wonder people get depressed.

Anyone seen the print edition?

[Ronald Dumsfeld]

The Nat. Geographic article hints at how this works, basically all the DNA from the female is eliminated from the egg by the male DNA.

The way the submitter, and the New Scientist teaser worded it you were left wondering exactly how the male ants cloned themselves. Little ant laboratories perhaps? Being a matriarchy, I'm sure their government disapproves. :)

Hellstrom's Hive...

[infonography]

Hellstrom's Hive by Frank Herbert (1973) A book I read a many years back about a secret colony of humans living along Social Insect lines. Most disturbing bit as about a grinder that the 'Colonists' would walk into freely upon orders if they were found wanting. Much of the story centers around the Nature Vs Nurture theory.

When people start Cloning Britney Spears as a marketable commodity will the clones turn out to be the same sort of strumpet? I would guess that that would be what they would want anyway.