Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Queen bees may get most of the glory, but there is another queen of the animal kingdom who is the linchpin of her entire society. Queen naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber) reign over their underground kingdoms as the bearer of all children, while other rats build and maintain a complex system to tunnels, find food, and take care of the queen’s babies.  When a queen’s fertility declines or disappears, the colony fights a bloody succession battle. However, that violent fight for domination does not always occur. Peaceful succession between reigning queens and subordinate females is possible within an established naked mole-rat colony during times of stress. The findings are detailed in a study published today in the journal Science Advances and upends a lot of what we know about the rodent’s flexibility and resilience.  A special lab rat Native to eastern Africa, naked mole-rats have been particularly fascinating to scientists for over half a century. They were first brought into …