Today Breaking NEWS2014.4.1---马达加斯加发现6新物种

Today Breaking NEWS2014.4.1---马达加斯加发现6新物种
Six new species of a mysterious blood-sucking ant have been identified in Madagascar -- and they're an especially odd bunch.
The so-called Dracula ants, described today (March 31) in the journal ZooKeys, seem to defy many of the normal rules that scientists use to classify ants.
"The genus Mystrium is the most mysterious group within the bizarre Dracula ants," study co-author Masashi Yoshimura, a researcher at the California Academy of Sciences, said in a statement. "Mystrium was a difficult group to identify because of the remarkable variation within each species." The new species include the Mystrium labyrinth, the Mystrium mirror and the Mystrium shadow. Nonconformists
Dracula ants, so named because they suck the blood of their young in a process dubbed "nondestructive cannibalism," were first discovered in a rotting log in Madagascar more than a decade ago. But for years, these weird insects confounded researchers, as looks can be deceiving for the Dracula ants. "The role of an individual in a colony is not always obvious by its appearance. Ants that look similar may be minor workers in one species but queens in another species," study co-author Brian Fisher, an entomologist at the California Academy of Sciences, said in a statement.
For instance, the workers sometimes become queen ants; the queens may have short, nonexistent or large wings; and the queens can often be smaller than the workers. In addition, the genus had three different modes of reproduction, making classification even more difficult.
Mystery solved
After collecting and scrutinizing thousands of the ants in Madagascar for two decades, Yoshimura and Fisher figured out a method for distinguishing new species.
It turned out the ants start out as either a male, a large queen or a major or minor worker, Yoshimura said. Though some of the workers may then go on to reproduce or even become queens, identifying the species requires knowing these origin states, not the current role, of the ant. Classifying them also requires understanding their reproductive style.
Using this new framework, the researchers were able to reclassify several existing species and identify six completely new ones.
6新“吸血鬼”发现于马达加斯加蚂蚁物种
一个神秘的吸血蚂蚁的六个新物种已被确定在马达加斯加 - 他们是一个特别奇怪的一群。
所谓的吸血鬼蚁，今日（三月三十一日）在杂志ZooKeys描述，似乎藐视许多的科学家使用进行分类蚂蚁的正常规则。
“属Mystrium是德古拉怪异蚂蚁中最神秘的群体， ”研究的共同作者吉村雅史，研究员在加州科学院在一份声明中说。 “ Mystrium是一个困难的小组，以确定，因为每个物种内的显着变化。 ”
新品种包括Mystrium迷宫中， Mystrium镜和Mystrium影子。
新教徒
德古拉蚂蚁，如此命名是因为他们吸他们年轻的血液中被称为一个过程“非破坏性同类相食”的腐烂日志马达加斯加首次发现了超过十年前。 但多年来，这些奇怪的昆虫研究者混淆，因为外表会欺骗了德古拉的蚂蚁。 “一个人在一个群体中的作用并不总是显而易见的被它的外观。蚂蚁看起来相似可能是次要的工人在一个物种，但在另一个物种皇后， ”研究的共同作者布赖恩·费舍尔，一位昆虫学家在加州科学院在一份声明中说。 例如，工人有时会成为女王蚁，蚁后可能有短，不存在或大翅膀和皇后往往可以比工人更小。此外，属有三个不同的再现的模式，使得分类更加困难。
谜底揭晓
收集和审核成千上万在马达加斯加的蚂蚁了二十年后，吉村和Fisher想通了区分新品种的方法。 原来，蚂蚁开始了作为一个男人，一个大王后或大或小的工人，吉村说。虽然有些工人可能再继续繁殖，甚至成为皇后，识别物种需要知道这些国家的起源，而不是当前角色的蚂蚁。判断他们也需要了解他们的生殖风格。 使用这种新的架构下，研究人员能够重新分类几种现有物种和识别6完全新的。