HABITS OF THE KELEP, OR GUATEMALAN COTTON 

 BOLL-WEEVIL ANT. 



The kelep" was discovered, on the cotton April 20, 1904, in Alta 

 Vera Paz, Guatemala, and its efficiency as a destroyer of the Mexican 

 cotton boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis Boh.) was demonstrated the 

 following- day. It was immediately appreciated, of course, that such 

 an insect would be of value in Texas, providing that it could be colo- 

 nized and would thrive in that State, and that it had no noxious habits. 

 To the solution of these questions all subsequent stud}- of the species 

 has been directed. 



Immediate practical use was also made of these observations of 

 habits and life history. The ant has been brought to Texas in healthy, 

 vigorous condition, notwithstanding injunction proceedings and other 

 unavoidable delays, which lengthened the period of travel and cap- 

 tivit} T to more than a month. Of about 4,000 ants, in 89 colonies, 

 scarcely more than a dozen died during the voyage, and half of these 

 were in a single colom T which was for a time deprived of a queen. 

 The loss, too, was made good mam T times over by the emergence dur- 

 ing the vo} T age of numerous ants from pupa? which had been eollected 

 and placed in the cages with the mature insects. 



While the adult worker ants expose themselves freely to dry air and 

 sunlight, the chief factor in the successful transportation of the colonies 

 has been the maintenance of adequate moisture in the cages by means 

 of artificial nests constructed of earth and stones, carefully built in to 

 form underground chambers not to be shaken down by the jarring 

 unavoidable in steamboat and railroad travel. It was fortunate, 

 perhaps, that the weevil ant was quite unknown when we left the 

 United States, for our outfit included nothing in the way of bell jars, 

 glass plates, and other laboratory appliances recommended by Lubbock 

 and other investigators of ants. Much time might have been wasted 

 with these complicated contrivances which would at best have been 

 far less suited to our purposes than the very simple means to which 

 necessity compelled a resort. For this ant, at least, the stone and 



a This is the name of the cotton-protecting ant in the Kekchi language of Alta Vera 

 Paz, Guatemala. The word has no other meaning or derivation, but appears to have 

 come down from ancient times, when a higher agricultural civilization existed in this 

 region than that found by the Spaniards. The accent is on the second syllable, and 

 the first sounds as though written hay. 



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