THE 

 POPULAR SCIENCE 



ONTHLY 



APRIL, 1906 



THE QUEEX ANT AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY 



By Dr. WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER, 



AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY 



OBSERVERS of ant behavior have almost invariably fixed their 

 attention on the easily procurable workers, to the all but, com- 

 plete neglect of the males and queens. In the case of the males, this 

 neglect is, perhaps, pardonable, for the behavior of this sex is extremely 

 monotonous. The neglect of the queens, however, as I shall endeavor 

 to show, has not only left untouched a very interesting subject of study, 

 but is responsible for much useless speculation. 



Mention of the queen ant unfortunately suggests by association the 

 idea of the queen honey-bee. These two insects are, however, in cer- 

 tain very important respects diametrical opposites. The queen honey- 

 bee is a degenerate creature, unable to nourish herself or her young, 

 to visit the flowers, build or store the comb ; while the worker bee, apart 

 from her normal infertility, still retains intact all the true female 

 attributes of the ancestral solitary bees. In ants the very reverse of 

 this is true : the queen is the perfect exemplar and embodiment of the 

 species and has lost none of the primitive female attributes of independ- 

 ence and initiative, which she shares with the female bumble bees, soli- 

 tary and social wasps. The worker ant, on the contrary, bears all the 

 stigmata of incomplete and retarded development. Although these 

 differences between the queen honey-bee and queen ant and between 

 the respective workers must be apparent to the most superficial ob- 

 server, yet the familiar conception of the queen honey-bee as little 

 more than an egg-laying machine, so degenerate that she can not 

 exist apart from the workers, has been tacitly expanded to embrace 

 the queen ant. Surely it is time that the reputation of this insect 

 should be viewed in a more favorable light. 



