ALIEN ASSOCIATES AND AFFINITIES 



the Orasemas are looked after before the ants' own 

 brood! [W. 6, p. 5.] 



The life cycle of Orasema from egg to imago is a 

 week or ten days. Thereafter the adults are licked and 

 fondled and borne about by the ants, and fed by re- 

 gurgitation. The guests commonly take these atten- 

 tions passively; but sometimes just as growing boys 

 resist embraces seek to avoid them. One cause of 

 difference between hosts and parasites emanates from 

 the preference of parasites for free air, which, as soon 

 as they mature, both sexes aim to reach. Their hosts, 

 having different views as to the relative values of light 

 and darkness, guard the exit gates, and, seizing their 

 guests, drag them back to the dark inner rooms. 



This tendency of the Orasemas results from their nat- 



t> 



ural habit of mating in the open air, after which the 

 fertilized females seek a Pheidole nest wherein to start 

 a new brood upon the round of 

 parasitic life above described. 

 After pupation the mature Ora- 

 semas spend much of their time 

 lying on their sides among the 

 ant larvae and pupae. They con- 

 tribute in no manifest way to 

 the welfare of their hosts, their 

 only interest in them being the 



selfish one of securing nurture 



,, , - , . , . (By courtesy of Am. Museum of Nat. Hist.) 



lor themselves and a brooding . 



Fig. 88 PUPA OF ORASEMA 



host for their offspring (Fig. 88). a _ Just before pigmenta _ 

 One finds nothing in the life his- tion. 6 Pigmented pupa 



. ,. ready to hatch 



tory of insects more puzzling 



than such seeming anomalies as the above associations 



between ants and parasitic chalcidids and beetles. We 



235 



