Tiny 60,000-neuron ant brains reveal how parental care evolved from feeding circuits

Long before the dawn of modern parenting, animals laid eggs and moved on, leaving their progeny to fend for themselves. Now, a study published in Nature uncovers one of the elegant ways evolution transformed neglect into nurture. Working with clonal raider ants, a surprisingly parental insect, researchers found that rather than evolving entirely new brain circuits for caregiving, evolution repurposed ancient neural systems for regulating hunger into triggers for social behaviors.