1983] 
Haskins & Haskins — Rhytidoponera metallica 
171 
Tabu-; 2 (continukd) 
FINAL RECIPROCAL TESTS OF TEN WORKERS BETWEEN COLONY 
FRAGMENTS B' AND B" 
February 16: 
8:00 a.m. Arena entirely quiet. Only 2 workers seen in arena. No hostility, and 
no “alien” bodies found. 
Thus, throughout this run, there was no hostility of any kind between host and 
introduced individual workers. It should be noted that BCl was markedly less 
numerous and strong than BU, and while BU contained considerable regenerating 
brood, none was found in BO. 
These test, therefore, were confirmatory of the earlier ones run on November 15, 
1982. Like them, they emphasize the important role played by site nest marking, as 
opposed to individual odor characteristics — an interesting convergence to the Tra- 
niello findings (Naturwissenschaften 67, S. 361 (1980). 
effects” were not demonstrable and almost certainly not signifi- 
cantly involved. 
In sharp contrast, the introduction of long-occupied earth-con- 
taining Lubbock nests of one moiety into the arena of another, 
whether the moieties had been maintained on identical or non- 
identical diets, was very different, resulting in vigorous mass attacks 
and the invasion and occupation of the introduced nest. 
This dramatic contrast suggests that, as in the cases of Pogono- 
myrmex, Oecophylla, and Lasius, colony-specific nest-site marking 
with gut contents (perhaps containing colony-specific pheromones) 
is important and regularly employed even in so primitive an ant, and 
one with so diffuse and vagile a colony structure, as Rhytidoponera 
metallica. This conclusion is reinforced by the extensive (though 
apparently random) marking of the substrate with fecal droplets 
that we have found general in arenas containing long-occupied 
metallica nests, a typical example of which is illustrated in Figure I. 
It strongly supports the recent findings of Holldobler (unpublished 
ms.) that in the Ponerine ants Paltothyreus tarsatus, a species of 
Leptogenys and in two species of Hypoponera fecal droplets depos- 
ited at the nest entrances can serve as orientation cues in homing, 
while in the last genus colony-specific preferences for these markings 
could be demonstrated. 
