PSYCHE 
Vol. .57 March, 1950 No. 1 
NOTE ON THE METHOD OF COLONY FOUNDATION 
OF THE PONERINE ANT BRACHYPONERA 
(. EUPONERA ) LUTE A MAYR 
Caryl P. Haskins and Edna F. Haskins 
Union College, Schenectady, N. Y . 
Introduction 
The methods of colony foundation among the Ponerinae are 
of peculiar interest to students of the phylogeiry of the Formi- 
cidae, for, as emphasized elsewhere, (Wheeler, 1900a, 1900b, 
1906, 1932, 1933, Haskins, 1928, 1930, 1941, Haskins and 
Enzmann, 1938, Haskins and Haskins, 1950a, 1950b) careful 
study of this most elementary stage of social development in the 
socially most primitive subfamily of ants may well shed very 
considerable light on the manner of origin and of subsequent 
evolution of the social mode of living in the Formicidae. In this 
connection, it is of particular interest that the observations of 
Clark (1925, 1934a, 1938), of Wheeler (1932, 1933), and of 
Haskins and Haskins (1950a, 1950b) on perhaps the two most 
archaic and socially generalized tribes of the Ponerinae, the 
Myrmeciini and the Amblyoponini, have indicated that in both 
of them, despite wide differences in morphology, physiology, 
and general habitus, the methods of colony foundation are 
closely similar, and are of a cruder and less specialized charac- 
ter than in any other known ants. In both cases the young 
female dealates herself, before or after fertilization, secretes 
herself in a chamber excavated in the soil, and then leaves this 
chamber at more or less frequent intervals to forage in the open 
for nourishment to sustain first herself and later her develop- 
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