Ants in Their Diverse Relations to the Plant World

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American Museum of Natural History, 1922 - 251 Seiten

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Seite 338 - Here are aphides, not living in the ants' nests, but outside, on the leaf-stalks of plants. The eggs are laid early in October on the food-plant of the insect. They are of no direct use to the ants, yet they are not left where they are laid, exposed to the severity of the weather and to innumerable dangers, but brought into their nests by the ants, and tended by them with the utmost care through the long winter months until the following March, when the young ones are brought out and again placed...
Seite 332 - December 28th, 1924, a meeting for the purpose of organizing a linguistic society was held in the American Museum of Natural History, 77th Street and Central Park West, New York City...
Seite 375 - Notwithstanding that many columns of the ants were continually carrying in the cut leaves, I could never find any quantity of these in the burrows, and it was evident that they were used up in some way immediately they were brought in. The chambers were always about three parts filled with a speckled, brown, flocculent, spongy-looking mass of a light and loosely connected substance.
Seite 339 - The behavior of both the ants and the membracids is much the same in all the cases studied. The ants stroke their charges with their antennae, whereupon the membracids give off from the anal tube a liquid that issues in bubbles in considerable quantity. The anal tube of the membracid is capable of great evagination, especially in the nymphs, in which it is long and cylindrical and usually tipped with a fringe of fine hairs. The honeydew is eagerly taken from the end of this tube by the ants. In many...
Seite 376 - ... not gathered together, but dispersed, apparently irregularly, throughout the flocculent mass. This mass, which I have called the ant-food, proved, on examination, to be composed of minutely subdivided pieces of leaves, withered to a brown colour, and overgrown and lightly connected together by a minute white fungus that ramified in every direction throughout it.
Seite 506 - ... three tenths of an inch long, which inflicts the most painful bites. Its antenna? are placed near the middle of the anterior portion of the head ; mandibles triangular ; peduncle of the abdomen with two rings ; the anus hairy and provided with a sting or piercer (Myrmica, Latr., nova species). They fall upon their prey with the greatest virulence, and insert their mandibles almost instantly, as soon as they come in contact with any soft substance, emitting a whitish fluid ; their bite causes...
Seite 375 - The leaves are used to thatch the domes which cover the entrances to their subterranean dwellings, thereby protecting from the deluging rains the young broods in the nests beneath.
Seite 339 - It is colorless and transparent, rather heavy, and somewhat sticky. When first exuded it is inclined to be frothy, due no doubt to bubbles of air which emerge with it, but it quickly clears on settling. It is practically tasteless even in comparatively large quantities, and many attempts to distinguish a sweet taste have proved unsuccessful. The term honeydew, therefore, commonly applied to the fluid, is hardly a descriptive one. It is very likely, of course, that the liquid may contain sugars not...
Seite 561 - The Natural History of the Agricultural Ant of Texas; a Monograph of the habits, architecture, and structure of Pogonomyrmex barbatus.
Seite 343 - Indian hut, at a height of 3000 feet, for the sake of devoting a month to the exploration of that interesting mountain. The walls of the hut were merely a single row of strips of Palm trees, with spaces between them wide enough to admit larger animals than ants. One morning soon after sunrise the hut was suddenly filled with large blackish ants, which ran nimbly about and tried their teeth on everything. My charqui proved too tough for them ; but they made short work of a bunch of ripe plantains,...

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