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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

A single gene helps to enthrone an ant queen

Insulin signalling can bestow the ability to lay eggs on sterile worker ants.
Workers of the army ant Eciton burchellii tend to their much larger queen

Workers attend to an army ant (Eciton burchellii) queen, which may lay as many as 100,000 eggs in a 20-day period. Credit: Daniel Kronauer

The vast differences between a queen ant and her minions have been traced, in part, to a single gene and its effects.

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Nature 560, 9 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05831-5

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