# The Mysterious World of Ants
Ants are social creatures that live in colonies with a queen, thousands of worker ants, and a few male ants. The queen lays all the eggs, worker ants build nests, gather food, and take care of the young. Male ants are only known to live to mate with the queen.

# Temnothorax kinomurai: A Social Parasite
However, Temnothorax kinomurai ants have a different strategy. Instead of forming a traditional colony, they take over the nests of a closely related species, T. makora, and raise new queens. These invasion attempts are risky, as some invading queens are killed by the host ants, while others fail to take control of the nest.

# The Secret of the Queens
When T. kinomurai queens take control of a nest, they kill the existing queen and become the new ruler of the colony. The host worker ants are unaware of the change and continue their normal duties, even raising the parasite's young.

# Behind the Research
T. kinomurai has been fascinating scientists for over 40 years, but the secret of why they only produce queens has remained a mystery. When German and Japanese researchers brought six T. kinomurai colonies to the lab, they produced 43 offspring, all of which were queens!

# The Production of Queens
The new queens were released to take over T. makora colonies. Seven were successful and produced 57 new offspring, all of which were queens again! Researchers studied the development of the eggs and discovered that queens can produce eggs without males. This means that each new queen is almost identical to her mother.

# Conclusion
This species is only found in nine places in Japan, so most ant colonies are safe from these cheating queens. However, this discovery helps us better understand the mysterious world of ants and their social structures.

# Did You Know?
* Ants are one of the most social creatures.
* Some species of ants can take over other ants' nests and form new colonies.
* Ant queens can live for 15-20 years.

# Sources
* Livescience.com
* Zmescience.com
* Nature.com
* DOGOnews