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Symbionts can substantially affect the evolution and ecology of their hosts. The investigation of the tissue-specific distribution of symbionts (tissue tropism) can provide important insight into host-symbiont interactions. Among other things, it can help to discern the importance of specific transmission routes and potential phenotypic effects. The intracellular bacterial symbiont  Wolbachia  has been described as the greatest ever panzootic, due to the wide array of arthropods that it infects. Being primarily vertically transmitted, it is expected that the transmission of  Wolbachia  would be enhanced by focusing infection in the reproductive tissues. In social insect hosts, this tropism would logically extend to reproductive rather than sterile castes, since the latter constitute a dead-end for vertically transmission. Here, we show that  Wolbachia  are not focused on reproductive tissues of eusocial insects, and that non-reproductive tissues of queens and workers of the ant  Acromyrmex echinatior , harbour substantial infections. In particular, the comparatively high intensities of  Wolbachia  in the haemolymph, fat body, and faeces, suggest potential for horizontal transmission via parasitoids and the faecal-oral route, or a role for  Wolbachia  modulating the immune response of this host. It may be that somatic tissues and castes are not the evolutionary dead-end for  Wolbachia  that is commonly thought.

Wolbachia in the Flesh: Symbiont Intensities in Germ-Line and Somatic Tissues Challenge the Conventional View of Wolbachia Transmission Routes