Cloning In The Animal Kingdom 123
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.
cloning uncommon? (Score:5, Interesting)
But aren't most of the ants in a colony workers?
Re:cloning uncommon? (Score:3, Interesting)
One would think so, perhaps these ants aren't like the other ants in this respect too?
Re:cloning uncommon? (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:2, Interesting)
Human hives possible?
To answer your question further.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Human hives are already here.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:4, Interesting)
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... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.