xxxm 



Account of an Invasion of " Siafu " or Red Driver-Ants — 

 Dorylus (Anomma) nigricans lUig., by Arthur Loveridge. 



Kilosa, 



Tang. Terr it., 



July 3, 1921. 



At 8 a.m. I discovered we were being invaded by Siafu, 

 who were entering the stonework base of the house at half-a- 

 dozen different points, and were already up the door plinth 

 and under the roof at one spot. Beetles, whose presence we 

 were unaware of before, were flying in numbers before the 

 advancing host, frequently with one or more of the red furies 

 attached to their hind legs. Wretched crickets and small 

 grasshoppers were being dragged ofi, feebly waving the one or 

 two legs that remained to them. The " Marmalade Ants," 

 {Camponotus maculatus F., ? race], such a pest in the safe, 

 were driven from their hiding-place and sought refuge amongst 

 books and papers on the table, thereby hoping to evade the 

 flanking scouts seeking hither and thither along the lines of 

 march for fresh supplies for the columns. My pet jumping 

 spiders cleared for their lives with prodigious leaps; one 

 black Carabid beetle clung to the table-cloth whilst a column 

 of invaders streamed past within six inches of him, yet found 

 him not. As is well known, these Driver- Ants, being blind, 

 find their prey by scent. 



Soldier-sentries were stationed at intervals of two inches 

 along the lines of the column, waiting with fore-part of the 

 body raised and widely-open jaws for any disturbers. A 

 match-stick being presented to three of these in turn, they 

 readily seized it and were transported eighteen inches away 

 from a hole into which a stream was disappearing. They ran 

 hither and thither and could not find their friends for some 

 time ; the first succeeded in doing so after an interval of three 

 minutes, a second following his tracks a little later. 



The holes into which they were entering and from which 

 they were issuing formed a regular warren owned and occupied 

 by an inch-long black ant which I have christened the " Lesser 

 Stink-Ant " [Paltothyreus tarsatus F.]. From time to time 

 one of these would hurry from an exit as if puzzled and be- 

 wildered, and then bolt down another hole. Several of them 

 were attacked by workers of the Siafu, but they readily rid 



PROC. ENT. SOC. LOND., V, 1922. C 



