PSYCHE 
Vol. 90 
1983 
No. 4 
THE BIOLOGY OF MYRMOXENUS GORDIAG/NI RUZSKY, 
A SLAVE-MAKING ANT (HYMENOPTERA, FORMICIDAE) 
By 
Alfred Buschinger, ' Ursula Winter,' and Walther Faber- 
Introduction 
Myrmoxenus gordiagini was described by Ruzsky (1902) from 
material which he had collected in the Akmolinsk area in Soviet 
Russia, near the town of Koktschetaw. The ant was always found 
living together with a newly described host species, Leptothorax 
serviculus Ruzsky. The colonies inhabited narrow galleries between 
and underneath small stones in the rocky slopes of a hilly region, 
with some birch and spruce trees. Finzi (1924) described a subspe- 
cies, Myrmoxenus gordiagini menozzii, from the Yugoslavian pen- 
insula of Istria. Only one male and one female were found within 
moss and soil at the foot of an oak tree, together with numerous 
females and workers of Leptothorax unifaseiatus (Latreille). Finzi 
therefore believed that his new subspecies was living with that host 
species. Finally, in 1925, Soudek established a new genus, Myrme- 
taerus, for a new species, mierocellatus, that he had collected near 
Kotor in Dalmatia, Yugoslavia. Although he explicitly discussed the 
close relationship of M. mierocellatus with Myrmoxenus, he des- 
cribed this ant as representing a new species and genus “as a provi- 
sional arrangement” (Soudek, 1925). M. mierocellatus was found 
under a stone in a deciduous forest, in a mixed colony with Lepto- 
'Institut fur Zoologie der Technischen Hochschule Darmstadt, Schnittspahnstr. 3, 
D-6100 Darmstadt, FRG. 
-Dr. Walther Faber, Vienna, died in June, 1979. Among his papers we found a 
description of the colony foundation behavior of M. f'ordia/^ini, and also some 
important information on localities where he had collected this species. 
Manuscript received by the editor June 23, 1983. 
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