Live Science reports of a
Japanese ant species called Temnothorax kinomurai that is able to reproduce
asexually but it doesn’t produce workers or even male breeders. It only produces queens like itself. Most ant species do not reproduce asexually
but require both a male and female to reproduce and what is most interesting is
that the queen is able to determine both the gender and role of the offspring
she produces. The Live Science
item stated:
Most ants live in
regimented, closely related societies in which queens retain sperm cells from
when they mated before founding the colony. They use these sperm cells
selectively to either lay fertilized eggs that will become female workers or
queens, or unfertilized eggs that develop as short-lived males. [1]
Evolutionists have
pointed to asexual reproduction as evidence for evolution and have even claimed
it to be a superior advantage to heterosexual reproduction. The Live Science item argues:
Asexual
reproduction can allow an organism to maximize its own genetic contributions to
the next generation by producing genetically identical daughters, and asexual
species can often outcompete their sexual counterparts because they don't have
to invest energy and resources into finding mates and producing males. [2]
It certainly might
appear that way at first as offspring might be reproduced on a more rapid scale
in the case of asexual reproduction, but is it really an advantage in the long
run? In the case of the ants, the Live
Science item does admit a disadvantage to asexual reproduction:
sexual
reproduction produces genetically diverse workers, which can be beneficial for
an ant colony when it comes to pathogen defense and division of labor. [3]
In other words, if
all the temnothorax kinomurai is able to produce are queens like itself, then
that does not bode well for a functioning ant colony because the establishment
and maintenance of an ant colony depends on queen’s ability to produce
offspring suited for different roles and as the Live Science item does
rightfully point out, the disadvantage that the creatures that reproduce
asexually face is a lack of genetic diversity which means a limited ability to
adapt to changing environmental and ecological circumstances and susceptibility
to epidemics that sexual reproducers may be less susceptible due to their
ability to produce offspring with a greater genetic diversity and to make
matters worse for asexual reproducers, if there is a loss of or corruption of
the genetic information being copied that is inherited by the offspring, those
same errors and lack of information will only continue to get passed down to
each successive generation and with the risk of further information lost or
corrupted which, in the long run, could be detrimental to the survival of the
species which is why God, in His infinite wisdom, did not make very many
asexual producers within the animal kingdom, having known ahead of time that
His creations would need with in them the genetic and hereditary potential to
produce genetically and hereditarily diverse offspring in order to enable the
animals to be able to live and thrive in various different environments and
ecosystems, and to be kept preserved from various infirmities, diseases, and
pestilences as the vast variety of life that we see in the world and the
variation that we see even within forms of life distinct from one another are
only possible through the production of offspring through the mating of males
and females within each given form of life rather than asexual producers.
End notes:
1. Chris Simms, “Every ant is a queen in this
parasitic species — and they reproduce by cloning themselves and hijacking
other ant colonies,” Live Science, March 3, 2026
https://www.livescience.com/animals/insects/every-ant-is-a-queen-in-this-parasitic-species-and-they-reproduce-by-cloning-themselves-and-hijacking-other-ant-colonies?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pushly&utm_campaign=Animals
2.
Ibid.
3.
Ibid.
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