Can You Imagine If Humans Gained Power From Sex Like Queen Ants?
Nat Geo - It’s good to be the queen—the ant queen, that is—because mating does wonders for her immune system.
When exposure to a low dose of a bacterium or virus builds an organism’s resistance to a later high dose of the same pathogen, it’s called immune priming. To study immune priming in invertebrates, Swiss and Panamanian researchers chose two that have plenty of time to build immunity: Lasius niger (above) and Formica selysi ant queens, which may live more than 20 years. Each species’ queens were sorted into two groups: the young virgin “princesses” and the mated queens—females that have mated with a male drone and stashed the proceeds in a “sperm pocket” from which they’ll fertilize tens of millions of eggs in a lifetime.
The researchers cultured a fungus that, in the wild, kills insects in about a week. They first administered a weak, low dose to each group of queens and then a high dose a week later. A tally of survivors showed that only one group, the L. niger mated queens, had gained immunity from the priming process. However, in both species, mated queens survived exposure to the fungus significantly better than did their virgin sisters.
I would take over the world because of how much sex I already have. Sorry mom but it’s true. If I were a Queen Ant I’d have so many ants building tunnels and castles for me other rival Queen Ants would try to have me assassinated. It wouldn’t work though because again, I have so much sex.
But on a less serious note, imagine if this were actually something that happened to humans? Stormy Daniels would be President and Donald Trump would be the one going on book tours tryna get some shine off her buzz. That guy on Twitter who does gay porn but isn’t gay because he closes his eyes would be Paul Ryan. Tim Tebow would be dead.
That part sucks I’m sorry I had to say it but I can’t give you guys all the positives and not address the negatives. All of earth’s virgin adults would ultimately perish. If you’re a virgin guy (I’m looking at you ISIS) you’re shit outta luck. Did I just change my own mind? Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Advertisement
Regardless of whether you think this would be a good world to live in, I think we can all agree that ants are fucking crazy. Ants are the human equivalent of The Unsullied in Game of Thrones, only they’re little insects and actually have reproductive organs. They blindly follow their queen, try and impregnate her, and ultimately probably die for her. While they’re alive, they spend all of it walking around and eating little pieces of dirt and then vomiting them back up to build ant hills for their queen. They cut up leafs and carry them around like little ant parades. And they protect their queen. Maybe there’s something we can all learn from ants. Maybe not though.