The shrinking brain helps the Indian jumping ant to become a queen ant

When the queen dies, the worker ants in the Indian dance ant colony will fight each other for the throne.

Indian dance ants. The new owner of the throne has the ability to expand the ovaries, reducing the size of the brain to take over the responsibility of reproduction for the whole herd. The battle for the throne Ants have a relatively simple “class” distribution system. While the queen is responsible for laying eggs, the rest of the herd must find food, feed the ants, join the battle, and build nests. Only male ants and queens are capable of reproduction, and other ants cannot. If the queen dies, the whole herd must suffer the same fate. Similarly, the Indian dance ants (Harpegnathos Saltator scientific name) include queens, reproductive males and a group of worker ants who are females. Queen ants hold the highest position in the ant colony, living 5 times longer. Only it is allowed to give birth. In most species of ants, the queen is born, not chosen from a herd. However, the Indian jumping ants allow worker ants to compete for a chance to sit on the throne, becoming a queen ant. Research published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences in early April showed that, in this species, if the queen died, about 70% of the female ants in the herd would compete for the throne. . The fight lasted for about 40 days. The opponents used the beard to fight until the competing group had 5 – 10 remaining. These animals continue to spend the next days to reproduce because the ovaries are enlarged while the brain shrinks up to 25%. After the war, the winning child will expand her fertility like a queen and become the second queen. The others return to being a worker, so the ovaries shrink and the brain enlarges again. Professor Clint Penick, the lead author of the study, commented: “This is an unprecedented miracle in the insect world. The toughness of this species allows them to swap roles in the herd. Professor Penick has spent many years studying the Indian dance ants. When worker ants become queen ants, they are called “gamergates”. All worker ants in the herd are capable of reproduction, but they are only allowed to do so when they win the throne. In the natural world, many species of insects, like bees, also compete for dominance. But the jumping ants fight to give birth, which really impressed the scientific experts. When a gamergate becomes a queen, its body goes through a complex transformation process. The queen will stop producing the venom, change its behavior like evading intruders, not hunting. Notably, their brains shrank by 25%, while the ovaries were enlarged by 5%. Indian dance ants can shrink the brain, enlarge the ovaries. Looking for a solution To analyze the queen ant transformation, Penick and his team selected 60 gamergates, painted them to distinguish them, then quarantined them for several weeks. When isolated, gamergate decreased fertility. But when they returned to the herd, they were captured and imprisoned by the worker ants. Penick explains that the gamergates are being controlled by the whole herd. The worker ants stopped the other ants from reproducing because this behavior was beyond the queens of the queen ants. If it was discovered that a member with the same function as the queen ant, the worker ants would bite and detain it for many days even though it did not endanger its life. Scientists hypothesize that this behavior causes a series of internal changes to the gamergates, making them likely to become queen ants but also as worker ants. The transformation happens in a few days. The reason the Indian jumping ant’s brain can shrink is because the gamergate does not have to use the brain to forage, protect the nest from predators. Their main job is to reproduce, while worker ants need large brains to think about these problems. Another reason gamergate shrinks the brain is to conserve energy. This behavior has also been observed in the Etruscan shrew, a small mammal. Their brains shrink in the winter to limit energy, helping to keep other parts of the body warm. Some other animals also have the ability to change brain size such as ground squirrels, birds. White-crested sparrows, for example, create 68,000 new nerve cells during the breeding season to help them recognize mating calls. In winter, when food is scarce, some of the nerve cells die on their own, and in the spring, they revive again. But this phenomenon is rare in insects such as ants. While Rachelle Adams, a researcher in ant evolution and ecology at Ohio State University, thinks maybe this behavior is not as special as we think it is. The problem is that scientists have not fully understood and discovered about the Indian hopping ants may be the foundation for further research in this field. As brain modification is studied more and can be found in many different species, it will have special significance in understanding the human brain. For example, research into the brains of the Indian gerbil helps to understand more about genetic control, the ability of genes to control flexibility in animals and towards humans.