Ants can give birth to males from a different species

Technology Sep 18, 2025

Scientists just found out that Mediterranean harvester ants (Messor ibericus) can actually give birth to males from a completely different species—Messor structor.
This surprising twist, published in Nature in September 2025, shakes up what we thought we knew about how insects reproduce.

How Messor ibericus queens pull this off

Here's the wild part: Messor ibericus queens use stored sperm and some genetic sleight of hand to make hybrid workers and even pure Messor structor males, all while passing on their own mitochondrial DNA.
About 10% of eggs from isolated queens turned out to be entirely Messor structor.
Researchers say this strategy could help the ants boost genetic diversity and raises new questions about how hybridization works in nature.