7 replies to this topic

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

Putting this here in general rather than my journal, as mutations seems of general ant/biology interest .

A new one has shown up in my colony, which came with one.

The first mutant showed up with no antenna(no scaring where they would have been, never had them) and was a good deal larger than her sisters or any i have seen sense in the colony.


The new one is a very weird one that seems like maybe it was going to be a male alate but then did something different instead part way along. They also seem to want to climb very badly like they want to fly off.


They have a partial black head and side of body, which is the right color for males.


But are mostly red like all the females.


they also have one longer antenna like a male's on the same side as the black areas


And was going to have wings but didn't really fully form them? Or were these possibly torn up by other ants during eclosing?

 

In this top down when it's holding still you can really see the striking line of red meets black along one side of it's body.
It's not in any shadow, all the black is the color on it including some of its legs on the one side.

vestigial wings, a little male in coloring, one male antenna, and maybe a slightly longer gaster like a male. And they seem to behave as one as well(wants to climb or clean itself, not seen it do any work or grooming of others). But they don't really have a fully formed male black body and more yellowish orange gaster with full wings. A new mutAnt in the colony again. Though I imagine it is going to be treated as male and killed off so might not last long.

 

[ANTdrew]

That’s wild. Being born male as an ant is some bad luck!

[Artisan_Ants]

Very interesting. After doing a little research, I believe this phenomenon is known as a supergene (so yeah, it's a mutation). It's basically when a certain area in the ant's genetic code combines different genes together as one, causing it to look like what we see here with an infusion of male P. occidentalis and worker caste of P. occidentalis. 

[Manitobant]

This is not a “supergene” but rather a gynandromorph, an individual that is half male and half female. The side with the wings is male, while the other is female (worker)

More info here: https://www.antwiki..../Gynandromorphs

[OwlThatLikesAnts]

This is not a “supergene” but rather a gynandromorph, an individual that is half male and half female. The side with the wings is male, while the other is female (worker)

More info here: https://www.antwiki..../Gynandromorphs

I really wanted to say that   The problem was that I didn't really know what  "supergene" meant and I thought that I would get corrected for stating that it was a gynandromorph

[Artisan_Ants]

 

This is not a “supergene” but rather a gynandromorph, an individual that is half male and half female. The side with the wings is male, while the other is female (worker)

More info here: https://www.antwiki..../Gynandromorphs

I really wanted to say that   The problem was that I didn't really know what  "supergene" meant and I thought that I would get corrected for stating that it was a gynandromorph

 

I found that supergene it might be the closest representation after doing some research, so I didn't mind searching anything else again just to make sure if it was or wasn't which is my mistake. Although, the best thing we can do is look for sources from AntWiki (like what Manitobant mentioned) and related websites for the most accurate results. Also my original ID, stating that it was a supergene, is a lot more vague than what Manitobant mentioned so I generally believe you would be fine if you stated that they were Gynandromorphs. Personally the first time hearing about this interesting phenomenon.

[Ernteameise]

This is amazing!

This is a topic that fascinates me to no end.

This reminds me of avian gynanthromorphs, like in cardinals, where there is sexual dimorphism. One half of the body is male (red), the other half female (brown). 

I once read that this phenomenon happens when sex is directly coded in cells, and every cell has a sexual identity. 

Birds are an example, but I had no idea this also happens in ants!

Wow, thank you for sharing.

 

The reason this does not happen in mammals (including humans) is, that our cells do not have a sexual identity, but our sex is controlled by hormones. 

All mammals (including humans) start their life as FEMALES (the stronger sex, obviously    ). Hormones determine, how the story continues.

If hormones happen at the right time and the cells do have the necessary receptors, then the mammal becomes a boy, otherwise, it stays a girl.

Decades ago, there was a small scandal in Germany, where enlistment papers for the army were sent to all GENETIK MALES, meaning, humans with XY chromosomes. Back then, females did not have to join the army, it was males only. However, these enlistment papers also went to XY humans who were WOMEN. Why were these XY humans female? Easy- their cells were missing the hormone receptors which could trigger the change of sex, so during development, they stayed girls. 

This is why I always have a big laugh if some people insist "There are only two sexes, this is a law of biology, everything else is unnatural" (well, newsflash !!, the only law of biology that counts is "anything goes"). 

This story would not happened like that if humans were birds.

And it looks as if in ants, mixed sex individuals are also conscripted / enlisted? Is this special ant doing worker jobs? 

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

This is amazing!

This is a topic that fascinates me to no end.

This reminds me of avian gynanthromorphs, like in cardinals, where there is sexual dimorphism. One half of the body is male (red), the other half female (brown). 

I once read that this phenomenon happens when sex is directly coded in cells, and every cell has a sexual identity. 

Birds are an example, but I had no idea this also happens in ants!

Wow, thank you for sharing.

 

The reason this does not happen in mammals (including humans) is, that our cells do not have a sexual identity, but our sex is controlled by hormones. 

All mammals (including humans) start their life as FEMALES (the stronger sex, obviously    ). Hormones determine, how the story continues.

If hormones happen at the right time and the cells do have the necessary receptors, then the mammal becomes a boy, otherwise, it stays a girl.

Decades ago, there was a small scandal in Germany, where enlistment papers for the army were sent to all GENETIK MALES, meaning, humans with XY chromosomes. Back then, females did not have to join the army, it was males only. However, these enlistment papers also went to XY humans who were WOMEN. Why were these XY humans female? Easy- their cells were missing the hormone receptors which could trigger the change of sex, so during development, they stayed girls. 

This is why I always have a big laugh if some people insist "There are only two sexes, this is a law of biology, everything else is unnatural" (well, newsflash !!, the only law of biology that counts is "anything goes"). 

This story would not happened like that if humans were birds.

And it looks as if in ants, mixed sex individuals are also conscripted / enlisted? Is this special ant doing worker jobs? 

The big deal'o on this one from my POV, is that We (humans) demand the precision, while nature runs on "good enough" estimates.

Sure we get "bit errors" in cell copy sometimes, but out of the hundreds of billions of copies made every day planet wide, a negligible amount will get copy errors and life carries on. It's like JPEGs, it's not precision it's estimation, and it's not just good, it's good enough.
 

Cause effort/outcome ratios matter, conservation of energy is an imperative in nature.
The effort of doing a precision bit copy of all the data in a cell is way too much demand, not enough time or energy available for all that, going to have to work out a reliable enough estimation system for that vast amount of data copy biology does daily.
An amount of flux range on a bell curve, is just intrinsic to such a system. Or to say 100% of everything on the bell curve is Normal, regardless of how rare it is to encounter.



This one is male in the brain to be sure. It never did work and at some point "switched on" and now just wants to climb up as high as it can get and fly off. Which is why i moved it to a test tube as i didn't want to watch it wear itself out trying to do what it can't do.