28 Bulletin American Museum, of Natural History. [\^ol. XXIII^ 



albicans von Siebold and nigrescens Duj., are well known parasites in several 

 insect hosts, although no ants are recorded among the number. 



3. The Parasitism of the Lomechusini. 



Our knowledge of the extraordinary myrmecophilous beetles of the- 

 Staphylinid tribe Lomechusini is largely due to the indefatigable researches 

 of the Jesuit Father E, Wasmann. Beginning in 18S6 and continuing to 

 the present time, these researches comprise a series of more than thirty 

 papers.^ The work has been taken up more recently by Viehmeyer in 

 Germany and by Father Muckermann in ^Yisconsin. My own observations^ 

 which are still very fragmentary but not without interest, will be recorded 

 after reviewing the work of the authors just mentioned. 



A. The European Lomechusa and Atemeles. 



The ethology of the Lomechusini is succinctly summarized by Wasmana 

 in the following paragraphs : ^ 



"The Lomechusa group, embracing the palearctic genera Lomechusa 

 and Atemeles and the nearctic genus Xenodusa, contains, from an ethological 

 point of view, the most interesting and at the same time the largest of the 

 true ant-guests (symphiles) of the arctic region. These Staphylinids, which 

 belong to the subfamily Aleocharinee, are treated by the ants like their own 

 kith and kin, live in antennary communication with them, are cleaned and 

 licked and occasionally also carried about ; tliey are fed from the mouths 

 of their hosts, although they are also able to eat independently and frequently 

 devour the ant-brood. The ants are especially attracted to these beetles on 

 account of the prominent tufts of yellow hairs on the sides of their abdomen 

 which are licked by the host with evident satisfaction. Not only do these 

 beetles themselves live as guests among the ants, but the same is also true of 

 their larvte. The larvje of Lomechusa and Atemeles are reared by the ants 

 like their own brood; they are licked, fed with regurgitated food and, before 

 pupation, covered or embedded in cells like their own larvse. When the 

 nest is disturbed they are carried by the ants to a place of safety in preference 

 to their own larvae and pupse. The predelection of the ants for these adopted 

 larvae is all the more remarkable because they are the worst enemies of the 

 ant-brood and consume enormous numbers of the eggs and larvfe of their 

 hosts. This brood parasitism, in fact, causes the development of abortive 

 individuals intermediate between the female and worker castes, and these 



1 Twenty-five of these papers, down to 1902, are cited by Wasmann himself at the end of a 

 twenty-sixth contribution entitled: Neue Bestatigungen derLomechiisa-Pseudogynen-Theorie. 

 Verhandl, deutsch. Zool. Ges., 1902, pp. 107-108; the remaining bibliography may be found 

 among the cards of the Concilium Bibliographicum. 



2 Zur Biologie und Morphologic der Lomechusa-Gruppe. Zool. Anzeig., No. 546, 1897, 

 pp. 463-465. 



