MATING BEHAVIOR OF THE SOCIALLY-PARASITIC 
ANT POLYERG US BREVICEPS: 
THE ROLE OF THE MANDIBULAR GLANDS 
By Howard Topoff 1 and Les Greenberg 2 
Introduction 
The ant genus Polyergus consists of four species, all of which are 
obligatory social parasites of the related formicine genus Formica. 
There are two principal behavioral contexts in which host workers 
form a social attachment to the slave makers. The first is inside the 
Polyergus nest, where the parasitic workers, queen, and brood must 
be fed and otherwise cared for by Formica individuals. These slave 
ants are obtained during group raids, in which a swarm of Polyergus 
workers invades a nest of Formica, disperses the adult workers and 
queen, and carries off the pupal brood (Topoff et al., 1984, 1985). A 
portion of this raided brood is reared in the slave-maker nest, and 
workers which eclose perform their typical functions (i.e., foraging, 
feeding, nest defense) as permanent members of the parasite colony. 
The second context of social-bond formation occurs during col- 
ony founding by Polyergus queens. Because queens are not capable 
of rearing even their first brood, a newly-mated female penetrates a 
colony of Formica, kills the resident queen, and becomes accepted 
by the Formica workers (Topoff et al., in press). 
The mating and post-mating behavior of Polyergus queens 
includes several adaptations for locating colonies of Formica. After 
the mating flight of P. lucidus, for example, dealate queens often 
return to a Polyergus colony and follow subsequent slave-raid 
swarms to target colonies (Kwait & Topoff, 1984; Marlin, 1971; 
Talbot, 1968). 
In this manuscript, we report the results of a study on mating 
behavior of the western slave-making ant P. breviceps. Queens of 
■Department of Psychology, Hunter College of CUNY, New York, N.Y. 10021, and 
Department of Entomology, The American Museum of Natural History, New York, 
N.Y. 10024. 
department of Entomology, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX 77843 
Manuscript received by the editor December 29, 1987. 
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