PREDATORY BEHAVIOR OF A SEED-EATING ANT - BRACHYPONERA SENAARENSIS

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.