The ant that turned its own young into a tool
Oecophylla smaragdina, the Asian weaver ant, called green ant across much of South and Southeast Asia, builds its nest entirely from living tree leaves, bound together with silk it does not produce itself. The silk comes from larvae. Worker ants hold the larvae between their mandibles and move them back and forth across a leaf seam, the way a human hand might run a hot glue gun along a joint. The larva, still weeks away from metamorphosis, secretes silk from labial glands in its head. It has no say in the matter.
