8 replies to this topic

[dspdrew]

This one Camponotus nest out on Ice House Canyon Trail near Mt. Baldy, California had tons of dueling majors for some reason. I don't recall ever seeing them do this before. They were all doing this just as they were coming out to forage right after it got dark.

 

[James C. Trager]

Territorial interaction between two colonies, I'd say. I've seen this in some other Camponotus spp.

[dspdrew]

Really? I'm almost positive these were all coming out of the same nest. Also I dropped one somewhere near another nest once and it got in a brutal fight with the other major, not anything like this. I kind of thought it would probably be similar to what Oz Ant's Myrmecia ants are doing in this video, and we know for a fact they are from the same colony.

 

 

 

Edit: I was back out there again, and these were dueling like this again. They are definitely from the same colony, and i didn't see any of the other colonies doing this... weird....

[Matt]

Strange behavior. Two hypothesis come in mind:

• I know that in some species, Major are eaten when there is a lack of food (protein?).
• But this behavior seems to be a real fight against two ants of different colonies. So, one of them could have lost its recognition pheromones? (water, sugar on its antennas...?)

[Crystals]

I have seen this kind of fighting with the local Camponotus herculeanus, usually where 2 nest borders meet.  Camponotus vs Camponotus.

I have never seen them lay into another Camponotus the way Formica do, with rolling around and such.

[dspdrew]

 

Strange behavior. Two hypothesis come in mind:

• I know that in some species, Major are eaten when there is a lack of food (protein?).
• But this behavior seems to be a real fight against two ants of different colonies. So, one of them could have lost its recognition pheromones? (water, sugar on its antennas...?)

 

There were lots of dueling pairs.

[Matt]

So, no idea.

[Mercutia]

I've read somewhere in someones journal that sometimes if the ants eat particularly smelly foods it can sometimes throw off the pheromone scents so that they become unrecognizable to each other and think they are from differing colonies. It's not permanent, but momentarily they confuse each other for intruders.

 

I wonder if that might be what happened?

[dspdrew]

I'm thinking probably not, because they do this every time they come out of the nest after dark. It's also not just two of them, but tons of them.