While animal mothers are known to sometimes dispatch of their young , very few animals will kill their own mother: the care she gives is just too valuable. But it turns out some ants can be tricked into matricide, killing their own queen, and scientists have captured the chilling coup on video.

This insurrection is orchestrated by an outsider ant – a parasitic queen from either the Lasius orientalis or L. umbratus species, who sneaks into a colony of L. flavus or ants before wreaking havoc.

" Ants live in the world of odors ," says corresponding author and behavioral ecologist Keizo Takasuka of Kyushu University in Japan. "Before infiltrating the nest, the parasitic queen stealthily acquires the colony's odor on her body from workers walking outside so that she is not r

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