Paraponera Clavata Research Articles

Nest Tree Selectivity by the Tropical Ant, Paraponera clavata

Nest Tree Selectivity by the Tropical Ant, Paraponera clavata

Temporal learning in the giant tropical ant, Paraponera clavata

ABSTRACT. Our findings suggest that the capacity for temporal learning in ants may be associated with nectivory. We tested for the existence of time and location learning in the nectivorous tropical ant, Paraponera clavata (F.). Artificial nectar sources were provided at fixed times and locations to P. clavata workers for 5 days. Ants appeared at the feeding location at the appropriate time on the first day that no reward was provided. By the third day without reward there was no difference in visitation between the feeding site and a control site equidistant from the colony. Most ants arrived at the feeding sites within 30 min of the training time, indicating that the precision of ant time sense is similar to that previously documented for honeybees.

Graded recruitment in a ponerine ant

(1) The giant tropical ant, Paraponera clavata, exhibits graded recruitment responses, depending on the type, quantity, and quality of a food source. More ants are initially recruited to a large prey or scavenge item than to a large quantity of sugar water. (2) Individual ants encountering prey items gauge the size and/or unwieldiness of the item, regardless of the weight, when determining whether to recruit. (3) The trail pheromone of this species is often used as an orientation device by individual ants, independent of recruitment of nestmates. (4) It is proposed that the foraging behavior of P. clavata represents one of the evolutionary transitions from the independent foraging activities of the primitive ants to the highly coordinated cooperative foraging activities of many “higher” ants.

Mass recruitment to nectar sources inParaponera clavata: A field study

Paraponera clavata foragers employ a trail pheromone and activation within the nest to obtain mass recruitment to simulated nectar sources. Foragers leaving and returning to the nest normally follow the same path. The existence of a trail pheromone was inferred from a series of experiments in which different techniques were employed to disrupt main foraging routes. Individuals baited to simulated nectar sources were observed to drag their gasters in a distinctive fashion when returning to the main trail. The return of an individual from a bait site resulted in greatly increased foraging activity from the colony. A maximum of 352 individuals were recruited within an hour following presentation of the bait. Recruited individuals were able to find the bait site in the absence of the initial forager by following the path taken by the initial forager. Even under normal, unbaited, conditions ants leave colonies in a temporal sequence that suggests social facilitation.

Comparative Anatomy and Chemistry of the Venom Apparatus and Mandibular Glands in Dinoponera grandis (Guérin)1 and Paraponera clavata (F.) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Ponerinae)

The venom apparatus of Dinoponera grandis is anatomically similar in certain key characteristics to that of Paraponera clavata and other ponerines, and also to myrmeciines. The furcula in these two species is X shaped. The gonostyli are bilobed, with the distal gonostylar lobe the smaller of the two. Very large mandibular glands attach to the mesal side of each mandible and extend into the cephalic chamber to an area adjacent to the antennal sockets. Dufour's gland secretion in D. grandis workers contains a series of saturated, monounsaturated, and diunsaturated hydrocarbons in the range from C13 to C19, with pentadecane being the major alkane present. The mandibular gland secretion consists of 2,5-dimethyl-3- n -propylpyrazine and 2,5-dimethyl-3-isopentylpyrazine. Dufour's gland secretion of workers of P. clavata is dominated by nonadecadiene, pentacosadiene, and heptacosadiene, with a series of alkanes and alkenes from C16 to C29 also present. Mandibular gland secretions consist of a mixture of 4-methyl-3-heptanone and 4-methyl-3-heptanol. Workers of P. clavata and D. grandis exhibited no reactions when exposed to either extracts of their cephalic glands or the neat compounds.

Sensory Structures on the Venom Apparatus of a Primitive Ant Species1

Mechanoreceptors and chemoreceptors are found primarily at 8 distinct locations in the venom apparatus of Paraponera clavata . Receptors are in the form variously arranged sensilla campaniformia, placodea, trichodea and basiconica and apparently function in sting manipulation and detection of a victim.

The Morphology and Histology of the Hymenopterous Poison Apparatus. I. Paraponera clavata (Formicidae)

The poison apparatus of Paraponera clavata (F.) is described in detail morphologically and histologically, and compared with the corresponding structures in other Hymenoptera as reported by various investigators. The descriptions include all the glands, sclerites, and associated muscles which function in producing venom prior to the act of stinging and in discharging it during the act. The function of each of the 11 muscles associated with the sting sclerites is discussed, as are the effects of the sting. The venom of this and some other ponerine ants is found to be proteinaceous and hemolytic.

Circadian Rhythms in Male Ants of Five Diverse Species

When kept at constant temperature and subjected to a daily cycle of light and darkness, males of Paraponera clavata, Iridomyrmex humilis, Solenopsis saevissima, Veromessor andrei, and Camponotus clarithorax were active at different hours. With Solenopsis and Veromessor the active hours relative to the laboratory dawn corresponded with the hours of mating flight in the field. In four of the five species the rise preceding maximum activity began before change to light or to darkness. This endogenous behavior, widespread in males, is of interest because timing in the worker caste has been questioned.

The Sting of an Ant

Stinging ants are well known in practically every part of the inhabited world, and their poison is usually considered to be formic acid. The ants of the highest subfamily, the Formicinae, which includes most of the commonest ants in North America and Europe, have no functional sting, however, but do have a well developed poison vesicle containing formic acid. Many of these ants, when biting the skin, curve their abdomen forward to eject acid into the cut and thus give to the layman the impression of stinging. The ants of the lowest subfamily, the Ponerinae, do have a well developed sting, and the poison is so virulent that it would seem to be something more powerful than formic acid. A widespread Ponerine ant in Central and South America is Paraponera clavata Fabr. The workers of this species are fully one inch long and the queen is still larger.

OBSERVATIONS ON GIGANTIOPS DESTRUCTOR FABRICIUS AND OTHER LEAPING ANTS

In any study of the very exuberant ant-fauna of the Neotropical Region one can not fail to be impressed by the striking contrast between certain genera like Eciton, Pseudomyrma, Solenopsis, Crematogaster, Cryptocercus, Azteca, and Camponotus, each represented by a large number of variable species, and genera like Paraponera, Acanthognathus, Daceton, Blepharidatta, Stegomyrmex, and Gigantiops, each represented by a single, very stable species. Of course, such monotypic groups may be regarded either as very ancient, embracing during some former age many species of which only one has survived, or as single species which, after acquiring generic status in the remote past, have since undergone little or no modification. The individuals of a species representing a monotypic genus may be either very rare or local, mere relicts of a bygone age, or prominent and ubiquitous over larger geographical areas. This is true of such ants as Paraponera clavata Fabr. and Gigantiops destructor, which I have recently had abundant opportunity to study in the jungle about the Tropical Laboratory of the New York Zoological Society at Kartabo, British Guiana. As the latter species is the more imperfectly known, I have singled it out for special consideration. The name Gigantiops destructor conjures up visions of a hugeeyed, insatiable monster, a kind of Cyclopean insect-jaguar. Fabricius, when he first described the insect in I804 as Formica destructor, certainly knew nothing of its behavior and probably gave it what seemed to him an appropriate specific name for any ant measuring a centimeter in length. More than half a century later ('58) Frederick Smith received specimens taken by Bates at Ega, Brazil, and believed them to represent a new species which he described as Formica solitaria. The following note was appended