xenoparity

We suggest defining such females as xenoparous, meaning they need to produce individuals of another species as part of their life cycle. This shows the evolution of xenoparity (xeno-, meaning ‘foreign, strange, different’, and -parity, meaning ‘produce, bring forth, give birth’), which is the need to propagate another species’ genome by means of its own eggs. Transition towards xenoparity seems to result from sexual evolution along a parasitism–mutualism continuum.

2025 September 3, Y. Juvé, C. Lutrat, A. Ha, et al., “One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants”, in Nature, →DOI, archived from the original on 23 Sep 2025

They say, "Transition towards xenoparity seems to result from sexual evolution along a parasitism–mutualism continuum. Similar to several other harvester ant species, M. ibericus first transitioned into obligate sperm parasitism, a situation in which they lost the ability to produce workers by themselves due to epistatic incompatibilities or selfish caste-biasing genotypes."

2025 September 4, Krystal Kasal, “Iberian harvester ant queens are cloning different species to produce hybrid workers”, in Phys.org, archived from the original on 13 Sep 2025

Iberian harvester ant queens have been observed tracking down males of a different species, a phenomenon known as sperm parasitism. However, this was time-consuming, so Iberian harvester ants took a different approach. [...] Xeno means “alien”, while parous means “produce”. This is the first instance of xenoparity, which is the ability to pass on another species’ genome through its own eggs.

2025 September 16, “Two Different Species of Ants Born From a Single Ant Queen”, in Smore Science, archived from the original on 17 Jan 2026