70 



THE ARGENTINE ANT. 



course of three minutes two Argentine workers had found their way 

 into the jar and eacli had ca])tured an adult midge. Other workers 

 soon followed. In about 15 minutes fully three-fourths of the flies 

 had been captured and at the end of 30 minutes all had been either 

 captured and carried away or were in possession of workers. The 

 first midges captured were quickly carried to the ants' nest, but pres- 

 ently tlie workers seemed less appreciative of their prizes and spent 

 much more time in playing with them, although hi but few cases were 

 the midges relmquished. Occasionally a midge would succeed in 

 taking flight after a worker had taken hold of it; in such cases worker 

 and midge tumbled to the floor, but without the midge being released. 

 That the workers were unable to see the midges was made evident 



many times over m this experi- 

 ment, for workers repeatedly passed 

 within one-sixteenth of an inch of 

 their prey without even clianging 

 the direction of travel. Only when 

 the worker touched the midge with 

 her antenna? could she locate the 

 latter. 



Later on it was found that the 

 ants thoroughly patrolled the sor- 

 ghum heads in the field and not only 

 captured the midges as they were 

 emerging from their ]>upal cases be- 

 tween the glumes but also removed 

 the ])up8e themselves. That this 

 ant is by far the most important 

 natural enemy of the sorghum midge 

 in southern Louisiana there can be 

 no doubt,' but its services in this 

 regard do not begin to exjnate its 

 many other crimes. 

 The Argentme ant is a persistent enemy of the white ants, or 

 termites, and will capture and kill them at every opportunity. Es])e- 

 cially during the mating season of the termites every male and queen 

 that falls to earth is quickly set upon by the ants. The hitter cut 

 off their wmgs, and frequently also legs and antenna3, and then bear 

 them away, still alive, to their nests. Wherever colonies of termites 

 are accidentally exposed the ants soon destroy them, carrying away 

 all stages. Not infrequently one finds the Argentine ant colonies 

 domiciled in the old termite galleries in logs and timbers, the assump- 

 tion being that the ants had first destroyed the termite colonies and 

 then taken possession of their domiciles. When winged termites were 



Fig. 10.— Argentine ant removing the pupa of a 

 sorghum midge from between the glumes of a 

 sorghum head. (Original.) 



» Dean, Harper, Bui. 85, Part IV, rev., Bur. Ent., U. S. Dept. Agr., p. 5", 1911. 



