10 
Psyche 
[March-June 
species is a typical column termite-raider, foraging in the general 
pattern of T ermitopone in the New World or Megaponera in the 
Old. This conception has most recently been alluded to by Sudd 
(1967). All our observations, however, including those made both 
in the artificial nest and under natural conditions, seem contrary 
to this. Foraging workers of Dinoponera may indeed follow one 
another in tenuous, ill-defined columns. But all those that we have 
observed under natural conditions have been extremely loose forma- 
tions — so diffuse as hardly to merit the name. Moreover, we have 
never seen termite raiding under natural conditions. In the arti- 
ficial nest, the species proved a general and uncritical feeder on a 
wide range of arthropod prey, including the larvae and pupae of 
other ants when offered. Workers of Termes flavipes , when pre- 
sented in debris outside the nest, were indeed sought out, captured, 
and carried in: but with no detectably greater readiness than other 
insect prey. If Dinoponera is specialized to termite feeding at all, 
it is to a very slight degree. As with other members of the Ponerini, 
sugary substances are readily accepted — and, indeed, probably re- 
quired — • by the adults. 
Summary 
The failure to discover a morphologically distinct female caste 
among members of the archaic ponerine genera Dinoponera or 
Streblognathus, or in the fossil genus Archiponera, has long led to 
the suspicion that, as in Diacamma and species of Leptogenys and 
Rhytidoponera , such a caste may in fact be lacking and may be re- 
placed by a reproductive form morphologically very similar if not 
identical to the worker but physiologically and structurally capable 
of fertilization and the production of worker brood. This suspicion 
has now been experimentally verified in Dinoponera grandis in the 
artificial nest. 
Notes are appended on certain features of the breeding pattern 
and ethology of the species. 
References 
Bates, H. W. 1892. The Naturalist on the River Amazon. Ed. by Clodd, 
London. 
Carpenter, F. M. 1929. A Fossil Ant from the Lower Eocene (Wilcox) 
of Tennessee. J. Wash. Acad. Sci., 19: 300-301. 
Carpenter, F. M. 1930. The Fossil Ants of North America. Bull. Mus. 
Comp. Zool., Harvard Univ., LXX (1) : 27-29. 
Emery, Carlos. 1911. Genera Insectorum, 118me Fasicule (Hymenopt^ra) . 
