Jp. Lachaud et A. Dejean, PREDATORY BEHAVIOR OF A SEED-EATING ANT - BRACHYPONERA SENAARENSIS, Entomologia experimentalis et applicata, 72(2), 1994, pp. 145-155
The great flexibility of the feeding strategies exhibited by the poner
ine ant Brachyponera senaarensis (Mayr) allows it to exploit either se
eds or animal prey items as food resources. Predation is generally lim
ited to small prey and is very similar to scavenging behavior. In labo
ratory conditions, the predatory behavior of B. senaarensis is not dif
ferent in structure from that known in other carnivorous ants species.
The workers forage individually and return to the nest using a series
of cues involving light, a chemical graduated marking system near the
nest entrance, and memory. During nest-moving, recruitment by tandem
running was observed. However, in colonies where the food supply is re
gular, workers that discover food do not recruit nestmates, but make r
epeated trips between the nest and the food source. On the contrary, i
n starved colonies, the introduction of prey may produce a massive exi
t of foragers, corresponding to a primitive form of mass recruitment s
imilar to that observed in some other ant species.