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The socially parasitic ant genus  Myrmoxenus  varies strongly in fundamental life history traits, such as queen-worker ratio, the timing of sexual production, and mating behavior.  Myrmoxenus  queens generally take over nests of  Temnothorax  ants, kill the resident queen by throttling, and force the workers to take care of the social parasite’s brood. Young queens of  M .  ravouxi  and other species produce large numbers of workers, which during “slave-raids” pillage host pupae from neighboring  Temnothorax  colonies to increase the workforce in their own nests. Other species, such as  M .  corsicus , have lost caste polyphenism and rear only male and female sexual offspring. Using sequences of the genes CO I / CO II and wingless we reconstruct the phylogeny of  Myrmoxenus  and document that the worker caste was lost convergently at least three times. Furthermore, mating in the nest and inbreeding obviously also evolved in parallel from ancestors whose sexuals presumably mated during nuptial flights.  Myrmoxenus  might thus provide a suitable model to investigate caste differentiation and the plasticity of mating behavior in Hymenoptera.

Multiple Convergent Origins of Workerlessness and Inbreeding in the Socially Parasitic Ant Genus Myrmoxenus