Originally, S. invicta was believed to be a red form of the black species S. saevissima richteri Forel. In 1972, Buren described the black imported fire ant to be a separate and distinct species, S. richteri Forel, and the RIFA was identified as S. invicta Buren (Hedges 1997).
Homologous recombination is a type of genetic recombination in which nucleotide (molecules which are joined make the structural units of RNA and DNA) sequences are exchanged between two similar or identical molecules of DNA.
Homologous recombination also produces new combinations of DNA during meiosis. Crossing over is a process in genetics by which two chromosomes of a homologous pair exchange equal segments between each other. This process occurs during the first stage of meiosis. JD Heyl