1986] Herbers & Tucker — Leptothorax longispinosus 223 
occurred in the second week, and one in the fourth week. Of two 
fusions, one occurred on the third day of observation. The remain- 
ing events occurred in late July, and involved ants only on Table 1 A 
(Figure 4): one nest moved and split within the next week; one of 
those subunits was apparently joined by a second nest immediately 
thereafter. Thus, although the two nests had not interacted in any 
discernible way prior to the end of July, they demonstrated a 
remarkable fluidity after being in place for eight weeks. 
Fission rates may be a function of nest size (Stuart 1985). Nests 
that underwent fractionation tended to have more queens than 
those which failed to subdivide during this study (average ranks of 
10.4 and 8.6, respectively), but this difference was not significant 
(Mann- Whitney U-test; P > .05). Similarly, nests that underwent 
fission tended to have more workers (R = 12.8) than those which 
failed to subdivide (R = 7.9), but again the differences were not 
significant (U = 40.6, P = .07). Although the small number of 
fissions reduced the power of our analysis, nonetheless out results 
are consistent with Stuart’s observations. 
Most nests in this experiment reared sexuals. Since it is extremely 
difficult to mimic the naturally-occurring reproductive flights of this 
species in the laboratory and thus our observations of reproductive 
behavior may not be indicative of natural activity, we give only a 
brief account: males eclosed in late July, and after staying in the 
nesting tubes for a week or so, they started to emerge onto the forest 
floor. There they explored and took a few preliminary hops before 
returning to their natal nests (at which point they were not always 
allowed reentry). By late August, all males left their nests perman- 
ently, and many were dead. Female alates, however, were much 
more reclusive, and came outside the nest rather infrequently. As a 
rule, these females were reaccepted into their natal nests readily. In 
only two cases was a gyne from one nest accepted into a second nest; 
thus acceptance of non-natal new queens may be rare in nature as 
well. These observations suggest that polygyny develops in L. lon- 
gispinosus nests primarily when daughters rejoin their nest of origin. 
Discussion 
Like all laboratory studies, our work can be criticized on the 
grounds that behavior of disturbed nests in seminatural conditions 
