Nowbahari E, Lenoir A
Laboratoire d'Ethologie et de Psychophysiologie - Université de Tours - Faculté des Sciences, Parc de Grandmont - F-37200 TOURS.
Laboratoire d'Ethologie et Sociobiologie URA CNRS n° 667 - Université Paris Nord, Av. J.B. Clement - F-93470 VILLETANEUSE.
Behav Processes. 1989;18(1-3):173-81. doi: 10.1016/S0376-6357(89)80014-2. Epub 2014 Apr 15.
Cataglyphis cursor forms monogynous societies which may however accept some foreign viduals. The factors influencing the degree of aggressiveness of the workers have been studied as follows. We have shown that the aggressive behaviour is expressed mainly by the foragers, the nurses are very little. aggressive. We observe therefore an evolution in the reactivity of the workers to a foreign odour in terms of age-related changes. However the closing of the society still depends on the behaviour of the foragers. Among the socia insects young workers are generally adopted by foreign colonies even if these colonies are completely closed to any other adult ants. Experiments allowed us to specify that young workers are recognized- as foreigners by another colony after the 4th day of age. Afterwards the adopted young ants were put back at different ages into their original colony, where they were recognized and accepted ty their sisters. The discussion is based on the origin of the colony odour. If this odour is formed from cuticular substances, in C. cursor their origin is probably endogenous, and predominant in comparison with the odours ac4uired from the environment (including that of the adoptive colony). Such an individualistic recognition system is known in only one other social insect species, the sweat bee.
箭蚁形成单雌群体，不过也可能接纳一些外来个体。对影响工蚁攻击性程度的因素进行了如下研究。我们已经表明，攻击行为主要由觅食蚁表现出来，保育蚁的攻击性则很弱。因此，我们观察到工蚁对外来气味的反应性会随着年龄变化而演变。然而，群体的封闭性仍取决于觅食蚁的行为。在社会性昆虫中，即使其他蚁群对任何成年蚂蚁完全封闭，年轻工蚁通常也会被外来蚁群接纳。实验使我们能够明确，年轻工蚁在4日龄后会被另一蚁群识别为外来者。之后，将被接纳的年轻蚂蚁在不同年龄放回其原蚁群，它们在那里被姐妹们识别并接纳。讨论基于群体气味的来源。如果这种气味由表皮物质形成，在箭蚁中其来源可能是内源性的，并且与从环境（包括接纳蚁群的环境）获得的气味相比占主导地位。这样一种个体识别系统仅在另一种社会性昆虫——汗蜂中被发现。
