422 



POPULATIONS 



related with high social organization and 

 large colonies. 



The males of the social insects are only 

 sHghtly modified, compared with the males 

 of their soUtary ancestors. In the Hymenop- 

 tera they function for the fecundation of 

 the new queens and seem to have no other 

 social value. They do not accompany the 

 fertile queen when she founds a new 

 colony. In the queen honeybee, tlie sperma- 



In addition to the production of gametes 

 and insuring their fertihzation, the repro- 

 ductives of social insects also reproduce the 

 colony unit. Thus colonizing behavior has 

 been added to the antecedent sexual be- 

 havior and oviposition. In this connection 

 it should be noted that the ecological ages 

 (p. 285) in the life history of individ- 

 uals are in part characteristic of the whole 

 social insect colony (p. 310). Although the 



Fig. 148. Model of a royal cell of the termite, Constrictotermes cavifrons, from British 

 Guiana. The queen with an enlarged abdomen occupies the center of the chamber with her 

 head toward the right. The king is at the lower left. Most of the individuals are workers. A few 

 nasute soldiers with "squirt gun" heads and reduced mandibles are at the left. A termitophilous 

 staphylinid beetle, Corotoca guyanae, with a physogastric abdomen is below the head of the 

 queen. (Courtesy of Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences.) 



tozoa stored in the spermatheca at the time 

 of the single copulation remain capable of 

 fertihzing eggs laid during the six to eight 

 years of life of the queen. In the ants, 

 queens may lay fertile eggs for as long as 

 fifteen years. In the termites, spermatozoa 

 are not stored for long periods of time, 

 and copulation occurs at short intervals 

 throughout the life of the queen. The male 

 termite accompanies the female and assists 

 in founding the new colony. He has exu- 

 date glands that attract workers who feed 

 and groom him. 



queen in a growing colony may be pro- 

 ducing workers, colonizing reproductives 

 may be produced only in a mature colony. 

 Before the colonizing flight, many winged 

 reproductives are present in the colony. 

 Holdaway, Gay, and Greaves (1935) re- 

 ported 2.4 per cent alates (44,000 in a 

 total population of 1,806,500) in a colony 

 of Nasutitermcs exitiosus in Australia. 



Colony senescence and death occur espe- 

 cially in temperate regions, but it is an 

 open question whether the colony as a 

 unit has a physiological age comparable 



