In many ants, the queen must lay eggs alone in the nest and raise workers (worker ants) during the creation of new colonies.Among them, the queens of the subfamily Formicinae and Myrmicinae, who have a strategy called "creation of a squirrel type", do not eat and drink single childcare (so to speak, "one-operated childcare") until the first worker grows up. It is thought that the muscles and fats stored in one's own body are diverted to feed and used for childcare.However, until now, no example has actually investigated this process in detail.
A research group led by Associate Professor Satoshi Miyazaki of Tamagawa University observed in detail the process by which the Queen of the Black Garden ant, which is abundantly distributed in Japan in the subfamily Formicinae, creates a new colony alone.Queen Tobiiro Keari, who started the creation of the black garden ant, started spawning within a week, and at the same time, the body began to decompose unnecessary flying muscles.
At 2 weeks, part of the esophagus began to swell like a bag, and at 3-6 weeks it formed a "chest sac" that stored liquid food for the larvae.Chest sac formation occurred spatially in harmony to occupy the gap created by the decomposition of the flight muscles, and subsequently occurred in chronological order with the flight muscle decomposition, so that the flight muscle decomposition products were used as bait. It is said that the possibility of being used was supported.
In addition, when observing the esophageal wall of the queen, a thickened surface structure with a wrinkled structure that finely wavy on the back of the esophagus was observed before the formation of the esophagus, but after the formation of the thoracic sac, the esophageal wall became swelling. It is said that it was stretched thinly.That is, it was suggested that the esophageal structure of the queen was specialized for thoracic sac formation.
This study clarified the mechanism of morphological change that Queen Tobiiro Keari can perform "one-operated childcare" even under the condition without food.The process of thoracic sac formation found this time may be common to many ants, but it is expected that comparative studies will be conducted on species with non-living type creation in the future.
