An ant-mimicking ant on an oceanic archipelago: mimics -An analogy with the situation of (Hymenoptera: Formicidae).

Mimicry, that is, the imitation of any unpalatable or defensive species by another, has been of central interest to evolutionary research since Darwin's lifetime. Two ant species, Santschi, 1908 and Emery, 1893, endemic to the Canary Islands, occur in two color-morphs: While the head of workers is always reddish and the gaster blackish, the mesosoma (inclusive waist) is either fully reddish or fully blackish. In addition to the obvious morphological and coloration similarities, we provide evidence of mimicry: (i) was found only within the area of .

Evolutionary history of inquiline social parasitism in Plagiolepis ants.

Social parasitism, i.e. the parasitic dependence of a social species on another free-living social species, is one of the most intriguing phenomena in social insects.

Genomic Signature of Shifts in Selection in a Subalpine Ant and Its Physiological Adaptations.

Understanding how organisms adapt to extreme environments is fundamental and can provide insightful case studies for both evolutionary biology and climate-change biology. Here, we take advantage of the vast diversity of lifestyles in ants to identify genomic signatures of adaptation to extreme habitats such as high altitude. We hypothesized two parallel patterns would occur in a genome adapting to an extreme habitat: 1) strong positive selection on genes related to adaptation and 2) a relaxation of previous purifying selection.

Evolution of morphological crypsis in the Tetramorium caespitum ant species complex (Hymenoptera: Formicidae).

Cryptic species are morphologically very similar to each other. To what extent stasis or convergence causes crypsis and whether ecology influences the evolution of crypsis has remained unclear. The Tetramorium caespitum complex is one of the most intricate examples of cryptic species in ants.

A near-infrared spectroscopy routine for unambiguous identification of cryptic ant species.

Species identification-of importance for most biological disciplines-is not always straightforward as cryptic species hamper traditional identification. Fibre-optic near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a rapid and inexpensive method of use in various applications, including the identification of species. Despite its efficiency, NIRS has never been tested on a group of more than two cryptic species, and a working routine is still missing.