Myrmecia impaternata, Taylor, 2015

M. impaternata View in CoL

The future of a newly mated ant gyne depends on her ability to establish a foundation nest and produce, by oviposition of fertilised diploid eggs, a first brood of workers able to secure her survival and future reproduction. M. impaternata as a species must have been originated by a successful colonyfounding gyne of either M. banksi or M. pilosula which had been fertilised by a male of the opposite species. Her daughter workers and gynes would have had the unmatched allodiploid karyology illustrated in Figure 2, compromising any normal reproductive future (for example, their gametes would be a statistical 50:50 mix of those of the two parental species). The chance inheritable parthenogenetic production of unreduced diploid eggs and allospecific males by one such hybrid gyne would have originated M. impaternata as a newly evolved hybridic species. We recognise this event as an example of instantaneous biological speciation [ 21].

The evidential production by impaternata queens of two types of males representing those of its parental species is posited as a simple consequence of hybridization in the presence of arrhenotoky.