Every ant is a queen in this parasitic species — and they reproduce by cloning themselves and hijacking other ant colonies

Nest of ants containing young, winged and wingless queens of the species, T. kinomurai (light brown) and dark brown T. makora hostworkers.

A rare ant species in Japan has no males or workers ‪—‬ only queens, scientists have found. These ant queens live parasitically in the nests of another ant species and reproduce asexually to create clone queens to take over other nests.

The parasitic ant, Temnothorax kinomurai, is the "first known species with only queens," said Jürgen Heinze, a biologist at the University of Regensburg in Germany, and co-author of a new study describing the findings.