Ants Seem to Defy Biology: They Lay Eggs That Hatch into Another Species

Re:Ants Seem to Defy Biology: They Lay Eggs That Hatch into ... by tremon on Saturday September 20, 2025 @01:02PM (#45315092)

> the researchers had to come up with a new term to describe the behavior exhibited by M. ibericus queens: “xenoparity,” which essentially means “foreign birth.”

Ouch, that hurt the classicist part of my brain. Why did they choose a greek-latin hybrid word, when the rest of the field of biology uses the greek -genesis to mean birth?

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Re:Ants Seem to Defy Biology: They Lay Eggs That Hatch into ... by messor_ibericus on Monday September 22, 2025 @06:18PM (#45340302)

1) There are many greek-latin hybrid words in biology (hepatocyte, neurotransmitter, gastrointestinal...).

2) Xenogenesis is a word that already existed before the publication of the article and using the same world could have been confusing: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17901077/.

3) Given than we're talking about a species that lay another species in order to create hybrids, using a word that is ethymologically hybrid sounds like a perfect fit.

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