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[Vol. 89 
individuals were living with A-queens. Two C-queens without a 
spermatheca were found in this sample (in nests No. 24 and 25). 
2. Leptothorax curvispinosus 
A total of 64 dealate queens from a sample of 23 multiple-queen 
nests was dissected. As was the case for L. ambiguus, we found all 
four categories of dealate females in L. curvispinosus (see Table 6). 
However, approximately 3/4 of the curvispinosus nests (74%) con- 
tained multiple A-queens, as compared to only about 1/2 of the 
ambiguus nests. In addition, all 7 of the multiple-queen curvispino- 
sus nests which had only 1 A-queen contained one or more b-queens 
and were thus becoming polygynous. The total number of C-queens 
was much lower in curvispinosus than in ambiguus. However, we 
found 3 C-queens with no spermatheca; and 2 of these were fully 
fertile. 
3. Leptothorax longispinosus 
A total of 79 queens from a sample of 26 multiple-queen nests 
was dissected. The proportion of nests containing more than one 
A-queen was 65%; and all but one of the other nests contained either 
one or more b-queens living with an A-queen or more than one 
b-queen without an A-queen (see Table 7). The only exception was 
nest No. 23 which contained 7 C-queens living with a single A- 
queen. One of these C-queens had no spermatheca. 
4. The number of ovarioles in queens 
Table 8 shows that queens of L. ambiguus usually have 6 ovari- 
oles (both ovaries combined). Six is the usual number of ovarioles 
for most European species of the subgenus Leptothorax sensu 
stricto (=Myrafant M. R. Smith 1950) and for species of the subge- 
nus Mychothorax ( ^Leptothorax sensu M. R. Smith) (Buschinger, 
unpublished data). However, L. curvispinosus queens most 
commonly have 8 ovarioles; and L. longispinosus queens most com- 
monly have 7. Moreover, the number of ovarioles in L. longispino- 
sus queens is very variable; and the distribution of ovarioles in single 
specimens of this species can be quite asymmetrical. One queen with 
10 ovarioles had 6 on the left side and 4 on the right; another with 1 1 
ovarioles had 4 on the left and 7 on the right. There was no evidence 
that the number of ovarioles is correlated with a queen’s function in 
a nest. The number of ovarioles often varied considerable among 
