308 
Psyche 
[September-December 
nae, species of the genus Bothriomyrmex are temporary parasites on 
species of Tapinoma (Santschi 1906, Wilson 1971). Several species 
of the genus Azteca are also suspected of being temporary parasites 
because they have microgynous queens (Wheeler 1910) and therefore 
cannot be expected to employ the usual claustral method of colony 
establishment. There has been no previous suspicion that parasitism 
was occurring in Conomyrma , however. 
Most of the material in the next 3 paragraphs has been reviewed 
by Wilson (1971), but we touch on this briefly again in order to 
introduce our lines of thought. 
In many temporary parasitic ants, adoption of the parasitic queen 
by a host colony appears difficult and not too often successful. Mixed 
nests of these species and their hosts are rare or uncommon. Never- 
theless, the parasitic species may become locally abundant by the 
process of colony fission (hesmosis) to form an enclave of closely 
spaced interconnected nests. Further adoption of newly mated para- 
sitic queens, additional to the original parasitic queen, seems a logi- 
cally necessary step in the growth of such an enclave. Colony 
“towns” of such ants often have been noted by observers. In the 
case of the allegheny mound building ant, Formica exsecboides Forel, 
enclaves of up to 1700 individual nests have been recorded (Wheeler 
1901). Nickerson (unpublished) has studied localized enclaves of 
an estimated 200 to 400 nests of Conomyrma insana at Tall Timbers 
Research Station north of Tallahassee, Fla. 
Queens of temporary parasitic species are all modified in lesser to 
greater degree. In many species this modification is shown merely 
by modest enlargement of the head and reduction of the gaster in 
relation to the thorax. In other examples the mandibles may be 
strongly modified to form falcate, piercing organs, or the whole 
insect may be very small (microgynous) in relation to the workers 
and/or may have various other characteristics such as modified 
pilosity or integument (Wilson 1971). Myrmecologists familiar 
with a number of these modified females can often guess that a 
species is a temporary parasite merely by examination of the queens. 
In contrast, females of free living species which practice the normal 
claustral method of new colony formation almost uniformly have 
voluminous gasters 'and relatively small heads with mandibles, pil- 
osity and integument not modified from the norm for the genus. 
The actual step by step methods by which the parasitic queens 
attempt to gain adoption by host colonies has been observed for only 
a few of the temporary parasitic species (reviewed by Wilson 1971). 
