Morphology, ultramorphology and histology of ovaries of workers and mated queens of Pachycondyla striata ants (Hymenoptera : Ponerinae)

The aim of the present work is to perform morphological and histological st udies of the ovaries of workers and mated queens of Pachycondyla striata an ts, which belong to the subfamily Ponerinae. The ovaries, after being remov ed, were schematized. Next, historesin and electronic scanning microscopy t echniques were applied, making it possible to note that the left ovary owns a greater number of ovarioles when compared to the right one (workers - 7 to the right and 8 to the left; queens - 6 to the right and 7 to the left) and that the ovarioles of workers present a rather wrinkled aspect due to t he fact that they are not developed. The same situation does not occur in m ated queens once they always present oocytes in distinct development phases in their ovarioles. Histologically it was observed that the ovarioles are of the meroistic polytrophic kind. Inside the ovarioles of workers, germina tive cells were observed in their distal portion, but their lumen were empt y. On the other hand, ovarioles of mated queens presented the germinative c ells as well as oocytes in different degrees of development, although more than one developing oocyte was never observed in the interior of each ovari ole. It was possible to note the presence of follicular epithelium, chorion and vitellin membrane in oocytes of mated queens, which change morphologic ally according the oocyte development stage.