PSYCHE 
Vol. 89 
1982 
No. 1 -2 
COMMUNICATION, RAIDING BEHAVIOR 
AND PREY STORAGE IN CERA PA CHYS 
(HYMENOPTERA; FORMICIDAE)* 
By Bert Holldobler 
Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, 
MCZ - Laboratories 
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 02138 U.S.A. 
Introduction 
The former subfamily Cerapachyinae was recently recognized by 
Brown (1975) as a tribe (Cerapachyini) within the subfamily Poneri- 
nae. All of the cerapachyine ant species investigated feed entirely on 
ants (see review in Wilson 1958; Brown 1975). During foraging 
cerapachyine workers engage in mass expeditions during which they 
raid the nests of the prey species, capturing preferably larvae and 
pupae, but also occasionally adults and returning them to the raid- 
ers’ nest. 
Although the detailed field observations on cerapachyine forag- 
ing raids reported by Wilson (1958) strongly suggest that the raiding 
expeditions follow chemical trails, this has not yet been experimen- 
tally investigated. In fact, almost nothing was hitherto known about 
the behavioral organization of the raiding expeditions and the under- 
lying communication mechanism. This paper presents the first ex- 
perimental analysis of the raiding behavior of a cerapachyine ant species. 
Materials and Methods 
Three colonies of Cerapachys (?) turneri (turneri group) (acces- 
sion #163a, b, c; voucher specimens in Australian National Insect 
* Manuscript received by the editor January 22, 1982. 
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