Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

A fluid role in ant society as adults give larvae ‘milk’ from pupae

Parental-care behaviours include mammalian lactation to provide milk for offspring. The discovery that adult ants harvest nutritious fluid from pupae and give larvae this fluid reveals social feeding that aids colony success.
  1. Patrizia d’Ettorre

    1. Patrizia d’Ettorre is at the Laboratory of Experimental and Comparative Ethology, UR4443, University Sorbonne Paris Nord, Villetaneuse 93430, France, and at Institut Universitaire de France, Paris.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  2. Kazuki Tsuji

    1. Kazuki Tsuji is in the Department of Subtropical Agro-Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa 903-0213, Japan, and at the United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Kagoshima University, Japan.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Reproduction is costly, and typically entails evolutionary conflicts between parents and offspring, such as in the relative investment of resources1. However, cooperation between family members is also common in highly social animals. Writing in Nature, Snir et al.2 report their use of a series of carefully designed experiments that reveal a previously undocumented role for pupae in the social dynamics of ant colonies.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 612, 405-406 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03722-4

References

  1. Trivers, R. L. Am. Zool. 14, 249–264 (1974).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Snir, O. et al. Nature 612, 488–494 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Davies, N. B., Krebs, J. R. & West, S. A. An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology 4th edn (Wiley–Blackwell, 2012).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Hölldobler, B. & Wilson, E. O. Sci. Am. 237, 146–154 (1977).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Holman, L., Leroy, C., Jørgensen, C., Nielsen, J. & d’Ettorre, P. Behav. Ecol. 24, 380–385 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Wheeler, W. M. Proc. Am. Phil. Soc. 57, 293–343 (1918).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Hamilton, W. D. J. Theor. Biol. 7, 1–16 (1964).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Lihoreau, M. et al. Ecol. Lett. 18, 273–286 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Meurville, M. P. & LeBoeuf, A. C. Myrmecol. News 31, 1–30 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Lenoir, A., Fresneau, D., Errard, C. & Hefetz, A. in Information Processing in Social Insects (eds Detrain, C., Deneubourg, J. L. & Pasteels, J.) 219–237 (Birkhauser, 1999).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links