SOCIAL PARASITES 



The long history of insect evolution has largely been a 

 struggle for food and shelter. It has often evidently proved 

 easier to make use of the energy and labour of another 

 species than to be completely independent. Any habitat in 

 which many animals live will be attractive to a large set of 

 hangers-on which depend in various ways on the activities 

 of other species. The more diversified the fauna, the more 

 opportunities for still more species to behave as predators, 

 parasites or guests of various kinds. The nests of social 

 insects, providing excellent shelter and rich stores of food, 

 have proved particularly attractive to other species. More- 

 over, the nursing instincts which become so highly developed 

 in the most successful social species make them especially 

 liable to deception. The nests of ants and termites, and to a 

 less extent those of bees and wasps, provide a home for a 

 large variety of strange insects. Many of these are merely 

 scavengers and survive by being inconspicuous, by having 

 impenetrable armour or by some type of chemical defence, 

 such as a repellent glandular secretion. 



ANT GUESTS 



The most successful and remarkable of the guests have 

 developed special secretions to which the social insects are 

 powerfully attracted. In some instances the attraction may 

 be regarded as dangerous socially as drug addiction in man. 



Mi 



