The unusual social parasite transition is important to understand because the genomes of ants have evolved for more than 100 million years. A single major transition occurred to introduce the novel “superorganism” level of social organizational structure with queen-worker...

Not only did some of the genes responsible for ant smell become lost over time, but as a result, the ants also showed a reduced size in the olfactory lobes in their brains when microCT scans were performed. “This...