230 
Psyche 
[June-September 
Material and Methods 
Founding queens were collected near Portal, Arizona, in May, 
1975, by B. Holldobler and individually placed in test tubes, 14.8 cm 
long by 23 mm inner diameter, kept moist by compact cotton plugs 
that trap water at the bottom of the tubes. As the selected colony 
grew the tube was moved to a plexiglass box 28 cm X 45 cm and 
15 cm deep, the sides of which were coated with Fluon GP-1 
(Northeast Chemicals Co., Woonsockett, R.I.) to prevent escape, 
and four similar tubes added. The colony has since been maintained 
on an artificial diet for ants (Bhatkar & Whitcomb, 1970) and honey 
water three times a week and fed freshly killed cockroaches 
( Nauphoeta cinerea ) once a week. 
Before the first set of observations the colony was moved to a 
glass nest made of two square plates 12.5 cm on a side, held apart by 
small pieces of non-toxic plasticin and taped on three sides. This 
simple nest permits close observation of the behavior of the entire 
colony. The assemblage was put on the floor of the original 
container next to the water tubes. The remainder of the floor served 
as foraging space and was kept clear for observation. 
The container was small enough to be placed under a swinging 
arm dissecting microscope. During a period of 4 weeks, a total of 18 
hours were dedicated to cataloging behavior; 2809 separate be- 
havioral acts were recorded. The observation hours ranged ran- 
domly from 9:00 A.M. to 11:00 P.M.; no differences in level or 
pattern of activity were noted, related to time of day. 
This species is polymorphic in the sense of Wilson (1935); for the 
purpose of this investigation the workers were classified in 3 groups, 
minors, medias and majors. Samples of 15 specimens of each group 
were selected later for head width measurements in order to check 
the adequacy of the classification. Specimens that could not be 
readily placed in one of the size classes were not included in the 
ethogram. 
Results 
The behavioral catalog of Formica perpilosa is presented on 
Table 1. Twenty-eight behavioral categories were observed in the 
minor category, 34 in the media, and 1 1 in the major. By fitting the 
frequency data to a lognormal Poisson distribution (Fagen & 
Goldman, 1977), the total numbers of categories, including those 
