An international research team led by Queen Mary University of and Dr. Eckart Stolle from the Leibniz-Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB) has discovered that a new form of ant society spread across species. They found that after the new form of social organization evolved in one species of fire ants, a „social supergene“ carrying the genetic information for the new social form, spread into other species. This spread occurred through hybridisation, i.e., breeding between ants of different species. The alternate way of life provides the ants with an evolutionary advantage and makes them more successful than with just the original social form.