All-female cloning ants
Apparently researchers from the University of Arizona have discovered an amazonian ant that has developed into an all-female species which reproduces by cloning.
More details can be found here:
Sexual reproduction is a great source of diversity which allows species to evolve over time through natural selection. So, from a pure evolutionary standpoint, one may wonder why these ants have favored cloning over sexual reproduction. The “choice” of cloning suggests that these ants are already very well adapted to their environment and can give up evolving. Asexual reproduction is faster, requires less energy and produces fewer errors (deficient individuals). In the case of these ants, it thus allows for mass reproduction of already well-suited individuals. However this comes at the great risk of extinction of the species on the long term because the species will be “trapped” into its current state (mutations are more rare in asexual reproduction) and won’t be able to adapt in case of environmental change (temperature change, new predator). So this strategy can be seen as favoring individuals over the species. Anyway, this is quite a fascinating discovery.