ANT COMMUNITIES 



Pachycondyla and some other genera are able to feed 

 themselves; perhaps have been educated thereto, 

 though the natural aptitude must have underlain the 

 habit. While lying upon their backs the larvaB suck the 

 juices of particles of food given them. The nurses of 

 Leptogenys dismember termite nymphs and scatter the 

 pieces among their larvse, who thrust their beaks into 

 the soft parts and feed thereon. So also workers of 

 Odontomachus will tear off the heads and legs of house 

 flies, cut the thorax and abdomen into pieces and feed 

 them to their Iarva3. In the above cases the food was 

 not first masticated, as is done by social wasps, but simply 

 cut into pieces to expose the soft parts to the larval 

 mandibles. Adlerz has made like observations of the 

 larvae of Leptothorax, Stenamma, and Pheidole, who are 

 fed with solid as well as liquid food. [Quoted W. 11, 

 p. 709.] Such increase in the variety of food and feed- 

 ing the young must add to the chances of their whole- 

 some survival by lessening the danger of a failure of 

 food, since it greatly widens the field from which avail- 

 able supplies may be gathered. 



An example of the strange exigencies that befall the 

 inhabitants of an ant commune appears in the case of 

 certain workers of Pheidole commutata that become in- 

 fested with large internal parasites, and are therefore 

 known as Mermithergates. This condition is accom- 

 panied with an enormous appetite, and they con- 

 tinually beset the nurses for food, which they get often 

 at the expense of the hungry larvae. 



The voracious creatures not only ply the nurses with 

 mimetic entreaties, including the out-thrust tongue, 

 but keep up a stridulating chant of solicitation. At 

 times they resort to more vigorous measures, and 



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