Here is one of those \'Gee Whiz\' questions. Can natural selection explain the e

Question

Here is one of those 'Gee Whiz' questions. Can natural selection explain the existence of animals that do not breed, that do not have offspring? Clearly if an animal does not have children its genes will not be represented in the next generation. According to the Theory of Natural Selection all organisms should reproduce. Yet we can see that many ants, bees and wasps live in groups where most of the individuals do not breed. Worker ants do not reproduce. Honey bee workers do not reproduce but care for a queen that does all the reproducing for the entire colony. How did something like that evolve?

Explanation / Answer

The queen ant lays eggs. It is the queen who does the work of passing on genes down to generations on behalf of the community and thus the selection is still valid but through a rather "bottleneck" - just one handler

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