Vol. XXIX. November, 1915. No. j 



BIOLOGICAL BULLETIN 



NOTES ON THE BEHAVIOR OF THE ANT-LION WITH 



EMPHASIS ON THE FEEDING ACTIVITIES 



AND LETISIMULATION. 



C. H. TURNER, 

 SUMNER HIGH SCHOOL, ST. Louis, Mo. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The ant-lion is one of the marvels of the insect world and is 

 discussed in practically every text-book on entomology and in 

 almost every popular book on insects. With the exception of 

 results derived from attempts to analyze the behavior of these 

 insects into tropisms (4), European papers may be epitomized 

 as follows: (i) the pits are formed in sand that is protected from 

 the weather; (2) the larva excavates this pit by moving backward 

 in a constantly narrowing spiral and using its abdomen as a 

 plowshare and its head for a shovel; (3) with one of its forelegs, 

 the ant-lion scrapes the sand on to its head from the inner side 

 of the spiral; (4) with its body entirely concealed, the larva lies 

 in ambush, with its open jaws resting in the bottom of the finished 

 pit; (5) by tossing up sand at random, the ant-lion forces insects 

 that alight on the side of the pit to tumble to the bottom; (6) any 

 small terrestrial invertebrate may become its prey; (7) there is 

 no mouth opening, the food being imbibed through tubes formed 

 by each mandible and another mouth-part. 



In American scientific journals, I have been able to find only 

 four articles treating of our ant-lion. The first and the longest 

 of these is by Emerton (6). In the fall of 1870, he found a pit 

 of Myrmeleon immaculatiis De Geer, under the shade of a boulder, 

 at Danvers, Mass. The larva was carried home and placed in a 

 bowl of sand. Immediately it buried itself. After remaining 

 beneath the surface for several days, it excavated a pit. No 



277 



