THE ANTS 



(Super-family Formicoidea.) 



All of the true ants belong to this group. They are all very 

 characteristic in appearance and there are very few other insects 

 which can be mistaken for them, except possibly the so-called 

 cow-ants, or velvet ants, of the family Mutillidae (super-family 

 Vespoidea), or the so-called white ants, which belong to an 

 entirely different order and which really should not be called ants, 

 \f popular names are to coincide at all with scientific classification. 

 The true ants, however, 

 as shown in the synoptic 

 table, are readily distin- 

 guished from all other 

 Hymenoptera, aside from 

 their general and more 

 characteristic appear- 

 ance, by the one or two 

 swellings on the petiole 

 of the abdomen. 



We have seen with 

 the bees and with the 

 wasps that while some 

 species are social and live 

 in communities, others 

 are solitary in their habits. 

 With the ants, however, 

 it is different; all species 



ig. 20. — Solenopsis xyioni. (After McCook.) 



live in communities and are social insects. Social life with certain 

 of the ants is carried to the greatest extreme known in nature. 

 The differentiation into different castes or forms of individuals of 

 the same species is carried to a much higher extent than with the 

 bees and the wasps. We have seen, with the bumblebees, the 

 beginning of a separation into two classes of workers, that is to 



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