COMPARATIVE ANATOMY OF THE VENTRAL REGION 
OF ANT LARVAE, AND ITS RELATION TO 
FEEDING BEHAVIOR. 1 
By Ronald S. Petralia 2 and S. B. Vinson 
Department of Entomology 
Texas A&M University 
College Station, Texas 77843 
Introduction 
The morphology and systematics of the larvae of ants have been 
studied in great detail by George C. and Jeanette Wheeler in many 
articles and is summarized in Wheeler and Wheeler (1976). Fromthe 
studies of many authors, especially the former and William M. 
Wheeler (1918, 1920), it is apparent that the mature larvae of many 
species of ants are fed solid food by the adult worker ants, which place 
the food on the ventral region of the larvae. Although the Wheelers 
describe the general morphology of ant larvae, they have not studied 
the ventral feeding region as a distinct unit, except in larvae where 
this region is the most specialized (e.g. Pseudomyrmecinae and Cam- 
ponotini). Consequently, we intend in this study to examine the fine 
detail of the ventral region of larvae in the hope of clarifying homolo¬ 
gies in morphological adaptations for feeding on solid food. 
Materials and Methods 
Mature larvae of 15 species of ants from 6 subfamilies were exam¬ 
ined, including: 
Dorylinae 
Neivamyrmex nigrescens (Cresson). Collected in Portal (Cochise 
Co.), AZ (July, 1977), and identified by J. Mirenda. Three 
specimens examined with the scanning electron microscope 
)SEM). 
‘Approved as TA 15824 by the Director of the Texas Agricultural Experiment 
Station in cooperation with ARS, USDA. Supported by the Texas Department of 
Agriculture interagency agreement IAC-0487 (78-79). 
“Current address: Department of Biology, St. Ambrose College. 513 West Locust 
Street, Davenport, Iowa 52803. 
Manuscript received by the editor May 20, 1980. 
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