1986] 
Moffett — Oligomyrme x overbecki 
109 
A behavioral repertoire of the workers was compiled during 14 
hours within a four day period beginning five weeks after the colony 
was collected. Estimates of total repertory size were made by fitting 
the observed behavioral frequencies to a lognormal Poisson distri- 
bution as described by Fagen and Goldman (1977), using a compu- 
ter program supplied by R. M. Fagen. Additional behavioral data 
was gathered during roughly 25 hours of observations before the 
repertoire study. 
While collecting the repertoire data, light-colored (callow) 
minors, which were uniformly golden-yellow to light brownish yel- 
low, were distinguished from more darkly pigmented minors (vary- 
ing from yellowish brown to brown, with antennae, legs and gaster 
lighter). In addition, the non-callows were subdivided into “re- 
pletes,” which had their gasters moderately expanded with yellowish 
fluid, and non-repletes, which had small, contracted gasters. (By this 
criterion, all major workers and all callow minor workers were 
judged to be “replete.”) 
Voucher specimens from the study colony have been deposited in 
the Museum of Comparative Zoology (Harvard University). 
Results 
Nesting habits: The workers, queen and brood were tightly 
massed together between two small adjacent pieces of superficial 
bark. No food was seen within the nest. The nest area was originally 
estimated to contain about 400 workers, but upon return to the 
United States for study, 31 majors and about 180 minors remained. 
The original proportion of major workers probably approached ten 
percent. 
Repertoire: The complete behavioral repertoire of the worker 
castes and subcastes is presented in Table 1. During the period in 
which the worker data was collected, 27 behavioral acts were 
observed for the queen, including 19 instances of nipping at im- 
matures (described below), five self-grooming events and three 
instances of licking large larvae. The total repertoire size is 
estimated to be between 32-36 for the minor caste (data from all 
subcastes combined), and between 6-11 for the majors (95% 
confidence intervals). 
