MAINZ, GERMANY — Eternal youth is the first thing many of us might wish for if we stumbled onto a genie, but there's always a catch. Now, scientists have discovered a version of this story playing out in ant nests, as parasites drastically extend the lifespan of worker ants — but at a terrible cost.<br /><br />Researchers from the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz studied T. nylanderi ants that were infected with A. brevis tapeworms and found that the infected ants lived longer.<br /><br />They found that's because the tapeworms release chemicals that keep their victims young. Even at an advanced age, the infected ants still retained their youthful bodies. <br /><br />Young ants start off a yellow color, usually turning brown as they age and their skin hardens — but infected ants stayed yellow. <br /><br />The infected ants were also very lazy, never leaving the nest or helping with any of the usual tasks. <br /><br />The tapeworm chemicals also seemed to change the behavior of the ants around them, as these uninfected ants would serve them as if they were queens. <br /><br />Researchers think the tapeworms release the magical chemical in their hosts because it makes them too slow to move away when birds break open the ant nest to hunt ants. <br /><br />In this way, the tapeworms get swallowed with their hosts, which leads to the worms' eggs getting spread over large areas when the birds defecate.<br /><br />On closer inspection, the team found some metabolic changes in infected ants that drive this biology and behavior. <br /><br />When worker ants are promoted to become queens, certain genes switch on that boost their lifespan — and the worms also seem to be able to turn these genes on in their hosts. <br /><br />Infected ants also give off unique chemical signals that drive the other ants to want to look after them.
