1 
FORAGING AND RECRUITMENT IN 
PONERINE ANTS: SOLITARY HUNTING IN 
THE QUEENLESS OPHTHALMOPONE BERTHOUDI 
(HYMENOPTERA: FORMICIDAE) 
By Christian Peeters* and Robin Crewe 
Department of Zoology, University of the Witwatersrand, 
Johannesburg 2001, South Africa. 
Introduction 
Recent studies have indicated that, in ponerine ants, a eusocial 
organization is viable without the presence of a queen caste. In 
Rhytidoponera (Haskins and Whelden, 1965; Ward, 1983; Pamilo 
et al., 1985) and Ophthalmopone berthoudi (Peeters and Crewe, 
1985), some of the workers (= gamergates; Peeters and Crewe, 1984) 
engage in sexual reproduction. Although there is still reproductive 
division of labor within the colonies, the loss of the queen caste 
represents a retrogression since the replacement egg-layers lack spe- 
cialized ovaries. It is of interest to discover whether other aspects of 
the colonial organization of permanently queenless ponerines have 
changed with this modification in the reproductive structure. One 
consequence of this change is that queenless colonies have low levels 
of relatedness among nest inhabitants (there are many mated laying 
workers), and Ward (1981, 1983) has suggested that this leads to 
lower levels of altruistic behavior. Thus Ward would expect colony 
defence and foraging efficiency to be less well-developed in these 
species. The natural history of more species of queenless ponerines 
needs to be documented in order to test the validity of this opinion. 
The genus Ophthalmopone belongs to the tribe Ponerini (sub- 
tribe Poneriti), and is derived from Pachycondyla (W. L. Brown, 
pers. comm.). O. berthoudi Forel occurs in Angola, Zambia, Zim- 
babwe, Mozambique, and the eastern part of South Africa (Prinz, 
1978). The workers are monomorphic, and it is exclusively termito- 
phagous. Alfred Ilg described columns of hunting ants in O. ilgi 
♦Present address: School of Zoology, University of New South Wales, P.O. Box 1, 
Kensington N.S.W., Australia 2033. 
Manuscript received by the editor August 22, 1986. 
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