. Ants; their structure, development and behavior. Strong.) of the colony. This is true at least of the species of Odontoinachns,Stii/niatoinina, Pachycondyla and Poncra which I have studied. Cooksays, however, that the queens of Ectatoiiiuia tnbcrcnlainni, even -3- ANTS. when young arc distinctly less active than the workers. Isolatedqueens have shown no ability or inclination to excavate nests and verylittle interest in eggs or larvae which have been entrusted to them. The workers of the various species of Ponerinae are monomorphicand do not exhibit the singular polymorphism seen in the work
. Ants; their structure, development and behavior. Strong.) of the colony. This is true at least of the species of Odontoinachns,Stii/niatoinina, Pachycondyla and Poncra which I have studied. Cooksays, however, that the queens of Ectatoiiiuia tnbcrcnlainni, even -3- ANTS. when young arc distinctly less active than the workers. Isolatedqueens have shown no ability or inclination to excavate nests and verylittle interest in eggs or larvae which have been entrusted to them. The workers of the various species of Ponerinae are monomorphicand do not exhibit the singular polymorphism seen in the workers ofmany genera in all the other subfamilies of ants. The only exceptionis Mclissotiirsiis, an aberrant genus somewhat doubtfully referred tothe Ponerinae and unique among all ants in having worker and soldierforms of the same size (Fig. 139). Owing to the small size of the colonies, the nests are usually smalland obscure. They are, moreover, even in the tropics, excavated inthe soil or in old logs. Few of the species ascend trees and most of. FIG. 131. Ponerine ants. (Original.) A, B and C. Worker, female and maleof Stigmatomma pallipes; D, E and F, worker, female and male of Poncra pcnn-sylvanica. these, like Myrmccia, Neoponera and Ectatomma, nest in the nests are simply and rudely excavated, without smoothly finishedchambers and galleries or carefully constructed craters around theirentrances. As a rule the colonies are strictly monodomous, but Cookhas made the interesting observation that Ectatomma tuberculatum ispolydomous. In this ant a single colony often extends over severalnests, and he is of the opinion that new colonies are formed by a processof budding, like that seen in several of the higher ants, and not by THE POXERIXE ANTS. 233 isolated females. I had previously reached this conclusion from a studyof Poncra and Stiymatomma, but later, on finding an incipient colonyof Odontomachns darns in Texas and several isolated females of in cells u
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectants, bookyear1910
