Joachim K. Löckener, CC BY-SA 3.0 / Wikimedia Commons

Biologist E.O. Wilson once wrote that "ants are the most warlike of all animals," noting that clashes between ant colonies dwarfed the human battles at Waterloo and Gettysburg. But sometimes ant colonies get conquered not by outright warfare, but by stealth and deceit.

In fact, sometimes the members of an ant colony can get tricked into murdering their own precious queen.

That's according to a new report in the journal Current Biology , which reveals how some female ants practice a kind of chemical warfare that lets them sneak into the established colonies of other ant species and manipulate the worker ants into committing regicide — the act of killing a monarch — in order to usurp the throne.

The role of queen is paramou

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