Neural stem cell aging is a fundamental question in neurogenesis. Premature nuclear Pros is considered as an indicator of early neural stem cell aging inDrosophila. The underlying mechanism of how neural stem cells prevent premature nuclear Pros remains largely unknown. Here we identified that two pipsqueak family genes,distal antenna(dan) anddistal antenna-related(danr), promote the proliferation of neural stem cells (also called neuroblasts, NBs) in third instar larval brains. In the absence of Dan and Danr (dan/danr), the NBs produce fewer daughter cells with smaller lineage sizes. The larval brain NBs indan/danrclones show premature accumulation of nuclear Prospero (Pros), which usually appears in the terminating NBs at early pupal stage. The premature nuclear Pros leads to NBs cell cycle defects and NB identities loss. Removal of Pros fromdan/danrMARCM clones prevents lineage size shrinkage and rescues the loss of NB markers. We propose that the timing of nuclear Pros is after the downregulation ofdan/danrin thewtterminating NBs.dan/danrand nuclear Pros are mutually exclusive in NBs. In addition,dan/danrare also required for the late temporal regulator, Grainyhead (Grh), in third instar larval brains. Our study uncovers the novel function ofdan/danrin NBs cell fate maintenance.dan/danrantagonize nuclear Pros to prevent NBs aging inDrosophilalarval brains.