1 reply to this topic

[SuperFrank]

Ants from different colonies will almost always immediately attack and kill each other as soon as they come into contact, however eggs, larvae and even pupae from foreign nests or even different species can be seemlessly integrated into a colony and have no aggression from either side. Larvae have to be somewhat aware as they move around, eat, spin cocoons, perfrom trophallaxis etc. so why are they immediately integrated into a nest, even in highly predatory ants. Why are foreign brood not simply viewed as food? Especially brood of a different species. I can understand how parasitic species or some other specially adapted species would be able to readily accept foreign brood as they would be kind of "designed" for it. but it seems strange that many normal ants will readily accept another colony's brood

[LC3]

Well ants will eat each other's brood, In some Leptothorax canadensis populations have been observed raiding neighbouring colonies but eat the brood rather then raising it. That being said I also have never heard of wild colonies raising foreign species' workers as a common phenomenon.

 

In the wild, rarely will you find a species being able to raise foreign brood of another species, let alone from another genera. Even in slave raiding ants they normally (if not always) are related to their host species, same goes for social parasites.

 

The only occurrence where you may induce this is in captivity, where normally brood boosting either ends in a few or a lot of brood suddenly being put near the nest or in it. This would usually never happen in the wild of course. Even if the foreign worker is raised and is not particularly useful for the colony unless they somehow manage to comprise 50% of the workforce, I doubt it would be much of a detriment.

 

In other words there's probably just no evolutionary pressure for ants to be able to quickly and easily recognize foreign brood, because it's practically impossible for an ant colony to have so much foreign brood somehow infiltrate into their nursery chambers all of a sudden that once raised (which isn't a guarantee) will be a detriment to the colony.