Ant kill brothers to mate with sisters!
Queen ants mate only during a very short period of time, such as a few hours during a mating flight or for a few seconds to several hours by calling males to her with chemical pheromones or with other signals. Regardless of how the queen is able to obtain sperm, she is stuck with this for the duration of her life. Queen ants never re-mate regardless of their particularly long life-spans. In a single short period of time in which a queen will mate, she may mate with one or up to a dozen males. Usually queens will mate with one or a few males, but in some cases queens seem to never mate more than once. Because matings occur only once in a queen’s and male’s lifetime males only produce enough sperm for that single event.
Some wingless males remain in the nest and copulate with their sisters after killing their brothers. These wingless and incestuous males are able to endlessly produce sperm so that they may monopolize the virgin queens enclosing from their pupal cocoons. Ref.Brendon Boudinot & the AntAsk Team
