Odontomachus bruennus is known to participate ritual aggressive/combat between nest mates, engaging in anntenal dueling, where basically two ants meet and "shiver/flutter" their antennae very rapidly, sometimes this evolves into a more pronounced behavior in which one worker "submits" and kind of crouches down, while the other "aggressively grooms" it. I observe these behaviors in my colony often. However recently I have begun to notice an evolution of this behavior so-to-speak. Where 3-5 workers will surround another worker and grab her by the legs/antennae. They will hold her there for several minutes while they all do the antennal dueling/shivering. The shivering is what makes me think it's a dominance interaction. In the one paper I read about the subject it does not talk about this sort of behavior and it's very pronounced. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts. Attached is a video
Edited by SuperFrank, June 22 2019 - 2:55 AM.
