Ants that seem to defy biology – They lay eggs that hatch into another species

This is nuts. If I'm understanding correctly, the M. ibiricus queen mates with a M. structor male, uses his sperm to create sterile, hybrid female worker ants for her colony, then she (astonishingly) can also lay eggs that develop into fertile M. structor males, which means she has removed her genetic material from the egg and effectively cloned the male she previously mated with.

The original paper discusses this in more detail. There is a well understood phenomenon called sperm paratism where male sperm will take over the egg, instead of sexually reproducing with the egg.

In sexual reproduction the offspring has 50% of its genetic material from both parents. In sperm parasitism the offspring is 100% related to the male and the female’s genetic material has been destroyed.

These inbericus females are allowing the messor male line to reproduce by sperm parisitism to maintain a domesticated messor line that they can then later sexually reproduce with to create hybrid worker ants.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09425-w