PSYCHE 



VOL. XXVI FEBRUARY. 1919 No. 1 



TWO GYNANDROMORPHOUS ANTS.i 

 By William Morton Wheeler. 



Two gynandromorphous ants which have turned up in recent 

 collections are of unusual interest since they differ significantly 

 from any of the similar anomalies previously described. One is a 

 gynandromorph in the strict sense of the term, i. e., a combina- 

 tion of the female and male of our common Lasius (Acanthomyops) 

 latipes Walsh, the other a dinergatandromorph, or combination of 

 the soldier (dinergate) and male of a Phihppine ant, Camponotus 

 (Colohopsis) alhocinctus Ashmead. 



For many years I have been expecting to find a gynandromor- 

 phous Lasius, both because the species of this genus are among the 

 commonest and most widely distributed Eurasian and North 

 American ants and because it seemed to me that at least an erga- 

 tandromorph, or combination of worker and male characters might 

 occur as readily as in other ants, since these two phases in Lasius 

 are of about the same size. On September 21, 1917, while turning 

 over a large stone at Colebrook, Conn., in a pasture less than a 

 quarter of a mile from the spot in which I took the gynandromor- 

 phous Mutillid described in a former number of Psyche,^ I found 

 a compact cluster of about two hundred of the bright yellow work- 

 ers of L. latipes and in their midst a black insect, which I took to be 

 an unusually large male. I placed the specimens in a vial of strong 

 alcohol and continued my collecting. On returning home I was 

 surprised to find that the dark specimen was a remarkable gyn- 

 andromorph of a Lasius in which the sexual differences are more 

 extreme than in any other species of the genus or indeed of any of 

 the North American ants, except the Ecitons. Many years ago 

 McClendon and I^ endeavored to show that L. latipes is peculiar 



' Contributions from the Entomological Laboratory of the Bussey Institution, Harvard 

 University, No. 153. 



s A Gynandromorphous Mutillid. Psyche 17, 1910, pp. 186-190, 1 fig. 



'Dimorphic Queens in an American Ant (Lasius latipes Walsh). Biol. Bull. 4, 1903, pp. 

 149-163. 3 fi'gs. 



