We (@danielkronauer.bsky.social & Patrick Piekarski) outline a general framework to explain for this convergence. /7

Remarkably, some of the same molecular factors additionally govern lifetime behavioral changes in social insect workers (as they transition from nursing to foraging) and mammals (during puberty). /6

In social insects, entire societies have evolved around offspring care, with morphologically distinct queens and workers. Here, similar molecular regulators govern the differentiation of castes during development and behavioral differences between adults. /5

In some lineages, parental care has evolved into a more co-operative endeavor, where individuals help to raise offspring that are not their own. These elaborations again relied on the repeated co-option of similar molecular pathways. /4

These molecular regulators typically form part of an ancient and highly conserved molecular network that pleiotropically controls feeding, growth and reproduction (three deeply interlinked processes). /3

Across these independent origins parental behavior is repeatedly underpinned by the co-option of functionally analogous, and sometimes evolutionarily homologous, molecular regulators. /2

Strepsipterans in the family Myrmecolacidae induce their hosts to climb blades of grass to increase their chances of being found by a male or to facilitate dispersion. The pictured worker was lingering at the top of a small ground-level plant, which is unusual for 𝘾𝙚𝙥𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨 /3.
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Females release a pheromone to attract males, which live for less than half a day & mate by puncturing the females cuticle and releasing sperm into her body. The eggs hatch inside the females body & the larvae consume her from the inside, emerging from her head /2

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