Template:Did you know nominations/Parasitic ants

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 talk 21:41, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Parasitic ants

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... that only about 230 of the more than 12,000 species of ants are considered parasites?

Source: https://www.rockefeller.edu/news/33682-illuminating-the-evolution-of-social-parasite-ants/

ALT1: ... that queen parasitic ants can lay their own eggs inside of a host's colony? Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6458323/
ALT2: ... that parasitic ants can infiltrate a host colony and kill the existing queen? Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347283712169#:~:text=Accordingly,%20a%20newly%20mated%20Polyergus,of%20social%20parasitism%20in%20Polyergus.
Reviewed:
Comment: This is my first DYK.

Created by Sophisticatedevening (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

Sophisticatedevening🍷^(talk) 20:49, 9 April 2025 (UTC).

@Sophisticatedevening: I will take a look at this one. el.ziade (talkallam) 21:35, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look at it so quickly. I was looking back on this and I think Alt2 is a much more interesting one than the original one I suggested, and was wondering if I could switch the two out? Sophisticatedevening🍷^(talk) 00:08, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

First off I have to say that this was a very enjoyable article. all the sources check out. The article itself is in order but I have a few comments about the proposed hooks:
ALT1: The source does not explicitly state that they lay their eggs inside the host colony. The sentence "Born inside a host colony, a parasitic ant will leave the colony, use a sex pheromone to attract a male from another colony to mate with, and once pregnant, will infiltrate the original colony or find another nearby" suggests that the parasitic ant is born inside the host colony, leaves, mates, and then infiltrates the colony again, but it does not explicitly state that she lays her eggs inside the host colony. This is considered an inference rather than a direct quote.
ALT2: I'd rather you replace "dethrone" with kill because that's also an inference.
Remedial actions for ALT1 would be to add a source supporting the claim directly, for ALT2 is to simply swap dethrone with kill. Please ping me when you address this, otherwise it's ready to promote.el.ziade (talkallam) 14:17, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

@Elias Ziade: Thank you for the kind words, I have modified ALT1 with a source that states Temporary social parasite ant queens initiate new colonies by entering colonies of host species, where they begin laying eggs. in the opening sentence, and have changed "dethrone" to "kill" in ALT2. Sophisticatedevening🍷^(talk) 21:10, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: None required.

Overall:

Alt hooks issues addressed. Good to go. el.ziade (talkallam) 07:19, 11 April 2025 (UTC)