Chimera Ant Queen

The Chimera Ant Queen is the mother of the Chimera Ant Arc's antagonist, the Chimera Ant King Meryem.

Background
The chimera ant queen is the first chimera ant to be seen in the series. Though chimera ant growth is generally limited to ten centimeters, a mutation has caused the queen to reach over two meters. The queen, unlike former queen ants, also has the ability to walk upright on two legs and with only four insectoid limbs instead of six. The queen also has a set of human-like teeth in addition to two sets of ant mandibles. It is unknown how the queen came into being.

The chimera ant queen first appears in the story when she washes up injured on the shores of the autonomous region of Neo Green Life (or simply N.G.L.), a small insular nation located on an island known as the Mitene Union. Driven by her reproductive instincts, the queen immediately begins to feed on small mammals and aquatic life in order to give birth to soldier ants, which she uses to gather larger prey in greater amounts. By chance, one of the soldier ants gathers two human children and feeds them to the queen; she finds this food more delicious and nutritious than prior prey and subsequently orders her soldiers to concentrate on gathering humans. Due to N.G.L. being a neo-Luddite nation forbidding the use of modern technology within its borders, news of the giant chimera ant infestation is slow to reach the outside world. By the time Hunters arrive in N.G.L. to investigate, the queen has given birth to all the chimera ants seen in the story. She dies during the premature childbirth of the chimera ant king.

Phagogenesis (摂食交配) [Sesshoku Kouhai]
By eating other creatures, a chimera ant queen can impart the characteristics of ingested creatures onto the next generation of chimera ants it gives birth to, as the queen can self-reproduce through food sustenance. Chimera ant soldiers do not possess this ability, although they do have the potential for reproduction through mating with other species.