1987] 
Goodloe, Sanwald, & Top off— Polyergus lucidus 43 
the same colony. P/S#l raided slave colony #1 four times, colony 
#1 1 A three times, and colonies #5, #9, #1 1, #34, #50, and #61 twice, 
P/N#10 raided slave colony #41 three times, and colonies #19, #21, 
and #58 twice. 
It is clear from this study that raids are conducted almost exclu- 
sively to colonies of the same slave species found in the raiders’ 
home nest. However, this experiment addressed the question of 
whether preference would be shown given abundant and equal 
availability of both species. Yet to be explored is the question of 
whether the raiders would choose alternative targets if the preferred 
slave species was absent. 
Additional evidence has indicated that pupae of a slave species 
other than the species present in a given P. lucidus nest are more 
likely to be consumed (Goodloe and Topoff, unpublished data). 
Thus it seems unlikely that workers of any slave species other than 
the original host species will survive in the nest. 
Goodloe and Sanwald (1985) demonstrated that newly mated P. 
lucidus queens, given a choice between a colony of the slave present 
in their nest of origin and a colony of another equally available slave 
species, will choose to invade the former. Although the mechanism 
by which raiders and queens acquire their preferences is unknown, 
imprinting is a likely possibility. For several Formica species, newly 
eclosed workers imprint to the species of pupae present during their 
first 15 days (Jaisson, 1975; Le Moli & Passetti, 1977; Le Moli & 
Mori, 1982). Perhaps P. lucidus queens and workers imprint to the 
slave species present at the time of their eclosion. The next step will 
be to determine if P. lucidus female alates are influenced, in their 
mate choice, by the host species in the male’s colony of origin. 
Acknowledgements 
This research was supported by NSF grant #BNS-8402041. We 
thank Stefan Cover of the State University of New York at Stony 
Brook for his identification of Formica specimens and his most 
helpful discussion and comments on this manuscript. 
Appendix 
Identification of Slave Species 
Currently existing published keys proved insufficient to distin- 
guish Neoformica species. Specimens obtained from raided nests 
