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[Vol. 93 
the bark of the tree. In captivity, foragers often followed trunk 
routes at least 3-5 cm long before departing from them to forage 
singly. 
Foraging minor workers fed at crushed fruit flies, fragments of 
freshly killed cockroaches, honey water baits, and Bhatkar diet 
(Bhatkar and Whitcomb, 1970). The ants avoided wounded fruit 
flies, and did not recruite minor and major workers to wounded 
prey as has been observed for Erebomyrma nevermanni (Wilson, 
1986). 
Soon after most large baits were presented, ants began arriving at 
the bait using a well-defined route, suggesting an odor trail had been 
laid down. However, recruitment behavior was difficult to docu- 
ment because of the tiny size of the ants and their weak response to 
food, even following periods of food deprivation. 
Typically food was torn into small pieces and carried into the nest 
by solitary individuals. Whole dead fruit flies near the nest entrances 
were sometimes dragged into the nest by groups of 2-5 workers. 
However, this group transport behavior was poorly coordinated, as 
workers often pulled in conflicting directions. 
Repletes: The O. overbecki majors were mildly replete (“semi- 
replete”), with their gasters never expanding to a size much greater 
than that of their heads. Moreover, the majors were no more replete 
than replete minor workers (judging by the volume of the gaster 
relative to that of the trunk). 
Emigrations: Two shifts in nest location were documented in 
the laboratory. These followed periods of mild stress in which a 60 
watt bulb was positioned 25 cm above the glass-covered nest 
chamber, while an unoccupied shaded chamber was provided 4-5 
cm away. Within ten minutes the ants became more active, with 
darkly pigmented minors and a few majors leaving the nest 
chambers to explore the nest environs. Gradually more and more 
workers moved back and forth between the nest chambers and the 
shaded chamber, until it was clear that a set route had been estab- 
lished. Traffic along the emigration route was relatively steady 
throughout the period of brood transfer, with the number of ants 
passing an arbitrary point on the route exceeding 20 per minute. 
The first immature was carried out of the nest 50 minutes into the 
second emigration; the sequence of brood transfer is documented in 
Figure 2. There was no group transport of immatures and no adult 
