SITUATION AND LOCATION-SPECIFIC FACTORS 
IN THE COMPATIBILITY RESPONSE IN 
RHYTIDOPONERA MET A LUC A 
(HYMENOPTERA: FORMICIDAE: PONERINAE)* 
By Caryl P. Haskins and Edna F. Haskins 
Haskins Laboratories, Inc. 
New Haven, Connecticut 06510 
Introduction 
Hangartner, Reichson, and Wilson (1970) reported some years 
ago that individual communities of harvester ants of the genus Pogo- 
nomyrmex are able to distinguish the scent of their own nesting 
material from that of other conspecific colonies. Holldobler and 
Wilson (1977) were able to show that the African weaver ants, 
Oecophylla longinoda, mark and advertise individual community 
territories by means of colony-specific pheromones deposited in the 
rectal fluids. And Traniello (1980) has recently demonstrated that, 
in the typically densely packed aggregations of colonies of Lasius 
neoniger, persistent trunk trails are maintained which arise from 
recruitment trails marked, again, with hindgut material. Here we 
describe what we believe to be nest-area marking with hindgut 
material in the primitive Ponerine ant Rhytidoponera metallica. 
Experiments and results 
The tests reported here were a continuation of a series carried on 
for some years, and earlier reported in part (Haskins and Haskins, 
1979). Material and methods were essentially as described there, and 
need only be briefly reviewed. The specific population used in this 
work was collected as a single, rather small colony taken at Mont- 
ville, in the Blackall Range of northern Queensland, Australia, on 
December 23, 1963. It was maintained as a closed inbreeding unit in 
the laboratory until the fall of 1979, at which time it had greatly 
increased in numbers, was active and vigorous, and contained 
* Manuscript received by the editor February 24, 1983 
163 
