1903] WHEELER: —CERAPACHYS AUGUSTAE 205 



SOME NOTES ON THE HABITS OF CERAPACHYS AUGUSTAE. 



BY WILLIAM MORTON WHEELKR, NKW YORK, N. Y. 



A year ago I described in the Biological bulletin (Vol. 3, No. 5, Oct. 1902. 

 p. 181-191) a singular Texan ant {^Cerapachys \^Parasyscia\ augiistae, of all known 

 New World Formicidae the most primitive and generalized. The few specimens 

 that furnished the types of the species were found under circumstances precluding 

 a study of their habits. These, however, must be more thoroughly known before 

 the precise taxonomic affinities of the tribe Cerapachyi to the Dorylinae and Po- 

 nerinae can be determined. I was well pleased, therefore, during the past spring 

 to happen on another larger living colony of these extremely rare ants together with 

 their eggs, and to be able to study their behavior for several days in an artificial 

 nest. Unfortunately, these ants, like their allies, the Ponerinae and Dorylinae in 

 general, do not thrive so well in confinement as the more highly specialized and 

 plastic Myrmicinae and Camponotinae. Hence my observations proved to be 

 rather fragmentary, but I have seen fit, nevertheless, to record them because they 

 shed some light on the habits and development of the Cerapachyi and thus bring 

 us a step nearer to a determination of their natural affinities. 



The colony of C. augustae, on which the following observations were made, 

 was discovered May 6th, 1903, near high water mark in the bottom of Shoal Creek 

 at Austin, 'i'exas. It was inhabiting a simple, straight gallery about 5 cm. long by 

 7 mm. in diameter, under the very center of a large block of limestone. At one 

 end the gallery dipped down into the soil to a depth of 4 cm. The ants, 29 in 

 number, were all congregated in the surface gallery with their long bodies wrapped 

 about a large packet of eggs. Only workers were found, though careful search was 

 made for the peculiar wingless female described in my former paper. The whole 

 colony, with the possible exception of a few ants that may have been out foraging, 

 was captured and placed in a small Petri dish, the bottom of which had been pro- 

 vided with a thin layer of damp soil partly covered with a glass microscope slide. 

 The ants soon took up their abode under the slide after collecting their scattered 

 eggs. Nymphs of two common Texan termites {Amiiertfies tnbiformans and E^iter- 

 mes dnereiis) were cut into a few pieces and given them as food. Even when these 

 were placed only a few millimeters from the ants, the latter showed no signs of 

 noticing them till they were actually touched, with th^ antennae. And even then 

 the ants often hesitated before attacking the still struggling heads and thoraces. 

 Eventually the termites were dispatched by the ants curling about them and using 

 both mandibles and sting. The latter produced sudden paralysis. Then the ants 

 eagerly lapped up the juices exuding from the cut ends of the termite fragments, 



