Quote:
Originally Posted by Haak
In ants, sex classification is based on Haplodiploidy, rather than the classic system that you're thinking of.
Males are haploids. Females are Diploids.
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Indeed. Unlike the mammal sex chromosomes (I'm sure everyone's heard of XX and XY), male ants simply have one chromosome instead of two (haploid). In other words, they only have half as much genetic material, and because of the way sexual reproduction works, always provide the exact same genetic material to their children.
Which means every female ant in a colony (which is most of them) shares all of their father's genes, and half of their mother's genes. So every sister is 75% genetically related, which makes them more related to their sisters than to their parents. It has been theorized that this is why they're so likely to develop their eusocial societies compared to other animals and even other insects (who do not have this idiosyncratic difference between males and females): genetically speaking they're actually better off raising more "sisters" than they are having children of their own. The more new queens are born in your colony, the more their genes will spread. In terms of instincts, ants love their sisters more than they love their children.
Anyway, Chimera Ants are also weird on top of that, but the point is that directly comparing gender for humans and gender for ants is misguided in the first place. It just means something completely different, biologically.
IIRC though, there is at least one species of ants in Australia where every member of the colony is fertile. They just don't breed until the queen dies.