1986] 
Buschinger et al. — Revision of Epimyrma 
271 
Table 7. Worker-production in colonies of Epimyrma kraussei Emery 1915 from 
3 populations, in the first summer after collecting (including the populations of 
E.foreli Menozzi 1921 and E. vandeli Santschi 1927). 
population 
n colonies 
total 
Epimyrma $$ produced 
mean median 
range 
no 14 Tignale (E.k.) 
23 
12 
0.52 
0 
0- 2 
no 19 Calabria (E.f.) 
12 
24 
2.0 
1 
0-10 
no 5a Lauzerte (E.v.) 
5 
5 
1.0 
0 
0- 4 
remaining brood are either removed or exchanged. Usually the 
foreign pupae are easily accepted, and also the sexuals hatching 
from them. After dealation of the young 2? a few of them are 
dissected for control of insemination. In the following spring the 9$ 
leave the nest chambers and can be placed with host colonies, where 
they found their own colonies. The first sexual offspring usually 
develops from rapid brood in the year of colony foundation (Winter 
& Buschinger 1983). 
It must be said, however, that the rate of successful colony foun- 
dations is generally low, both with cross-mated 2? and those having 
normally mated with brothers, Quite often this is due to insufficient 
insemination, and perhaps to not yet optimal laboratory conditions. 
We therefore present only a preliminary survey of successful cross- 
breedings (table 8) without giving data on numbers of replicates or 
numbers of offspring produced. These experiments are being 
continued. 
Table 8 clearly reveals that crossbreeding between different E.k. 
populations, and also between E.k. and E.v. or E.f, is possible. This 
result, however, can only weakly support our supposition of the 
synonymy of the 3 species, since we also succeeded in crossbreeding 
E.k. with E. Corsica, and with E. bernardi, both of which are 
morphologically and biologically distinct good and species. 
Discussion and Conclusion 
The meaning of the morphological and biological characters stud- 
ied in E. kraussei, E. vandeli and E. foreli, has been discussed with 
reference to the question of synonymy of the 3 species already in the 
respective sections. We found no morphological characters which 
would allow a clear distinction between them. The karyotype is 
apparently homologous in all Epimyrma species. The 3 species 
