1983 ] 
Buschinger, Winter, & Faber — Myrnio.xenus 
337 
The host species in all 15 colonies was Leptothorax liehtensteini 
Bondroit 1918. Up to about 200 host workers were found in the 
Myrnioxenus colonies. Nest sites were underneath small, flat stones 
in the soil, or in crevices between such stones. A common, and, in 
our opinion, quite important character of the Myrmoxenus habitats 
is the fact that they all were situated in rather shady places in a 
deciduous forest or in the underbrush. We cannot reconstruct the 
exact experimental device by which W. Faber studied the colony 
founding behavior. From his records we conclude that the colonies, 
which he had collected in May, produced sexuals until September. 
On September 9 and 22, 1972, he noted “strong flight activities,” 
and numerous Myrnioxenus females were dealate in the nests and 
arenas. Several times he put five dealate Myrnioxenus females 
together into the feeding arenas of L. liehtensteini colonies. Others 
were placed into formicaries with different Leptothorax species. 
Our newly collected colonies from 1976 and 1981 were kept in 
formicaries and under artificial daily and annual temperature cycles 
as described by Buschinger (1973, 1974, 1982) and Winter (1979a). 
For initiating slave raids, we used arenas as depicted by Winter 
(1979a) and Buschinger et al. (1980). During the raids the room 
temperature was about 27° C. Contrary to our experiences with 
Harpagoxenus or Epimyrma, which need bright sunshine or at least 
blue sky for raiding, the Myrnioxenus seem to prefer a clouded sky. 
Thus, the first raid which we observed in our labroatory took place 
on a cloudy day; for the second one, on a sunny day, we closed the 
window shades. 
Colony Founding by Myrmoxenus gordiagini 
As indicated above, we rely on the quite brief notes of W. Faber, 
who observed colony founding by M. gordiagini females in 1972. 
According to these notes, the young Myrnioxenus queen enters a 
host species colony {L. liehtensteini), apparently soon after mating 
and dealation, in late summer. Most Myrnioxenus females were 
attacked and often killed by workers of the host species. In a few 
experiments, however, a parasitic queen survived the attacks and at 
last was accepted by the host species workers. She then assaulted the 
host species queen in a very characteristic manner (Fig. 1). She 
grasped the Leptothorax queen’s “throat” with her mandibles, and 
