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The matchmaking service is a tactic to avoid inbreeding. A Cardiocondyla elegans worker ant carrying a queen to a foreign nest. (Image credit: Mathilde Vidal) Worker ants are known to take on many different job roles, from trash collectors to nurses that dress the wounds of injured comrades, to babysitters that care for their leader's young. But one Mediterranean ant species takes royal work to the extreme: The worker ants use their mandibles to haul their young queen to faraway nests so she can mate, according to new research. Despite their miniscule size — around 0.1 inch (2 to 3 millimet...

At Mating Time, These Ants Carry Their Young Queen to a Neighbor’s Nest The royal matchmaking service may help these insects avoid inbreeding. A Cardiocondyla elegans ant carrying its queen to another nest.Credit...Mathilde Vidal By Richard Sima May 13, 2021 We humans have Tinder, Hinge, eHarmony and Grindr. For other animals, there’s a real dearth of matchmaking services, not even Bumble or Plenty of Fish. But for future queens of one ant species, sterile worker ants seem to serve this function by physically carrying their royal sisters to neighboring nests. There, the queens-to-be...