Note on the Method of Colony Foundation of the Ponerine Ant Amblyopone australis Erichson

Abstract

Unlike the situation in many higher ants, the nuptial flight appears neither to be extensive nor to be undertaken in mass. Probably the rather weakly flying females are fertilized while at rest on the ground or on vegetation rather than in flight as is typical of higher ants. The fertilized young female enters the ground and forms a cell, usually connected with a series of rambling galleries which are closed off from the open air. The queen emerges from this cell at intervals to forage underground for living prey which is killed or paralyzed and brought back to the chamber, both before and after the 1st hrood has appeared. Thus the Amblyopone female contrasts strongly in behavior with the females of higher ants which found their colonies in typically claustral manner, but is more nearly claustral than the females of Myrmecia and Promyrmecia. The condition is clearly archaic and probably representative of the typical colony-founding methods of ancient ants, as is Myrmecia, modified in the case of Amblyopone by the wholly entomophagous habits of both larvae and adults. Studies were conducted both in the field and in the artificial nest.