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LIVING CHARIOTS. "Tetramorium inquilinum constantly sends chemical signals that trick host ants into accepting them as full members of the colony. Being ectoparasitic, Tetramorium inquilinum spends most of its adult life clinging to the backs of its hosts, especially queens. As many as eight have been observed piggy-backing onto a single host queen, leaving her immobile." https://lnkd.in/dGEyArn View in LinkedIn

SLAVE ANTS REBEL, due to diminished biological fitness as a slave species. "Host ants can be captured by the slavemaker ants, and these captured ants (slaves) normally work for the slavemaker queen. But recently, it was found that they sometimes kill slavemakers. It is unclear why they do this, because they probably cannot reproduce." https://vimeo.com/64925155 View in LinkedIn

FACE OF THE QUEEN Teleutomyrmex schneideri. This is the gnarny old girl. https://lnkd.in/drYKsKu View in LinkedIn

MURDEROUS SLAVES. "Two-thirds of pupae died before they hatched. The mortality rate was even higher (83%) for pupae containing queens, but very low (3%) for those containing males. The duo saw that the captives were deliberately killing the healthy pupae. In about 30% of cases, as in the photo, the workers would gang up to literally pull the developing ants apart. Another 53% of the pupae were killed by neglect, by workers who moved them out of the nest chamber." http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/01/the-rebellion-of-the-ant-slaves/ View in LinkedIn

RARE PICTURE OF THE QUEEN of Teleutomyrmex schneideri. "The body shape of Tetramorium inquilinum is specifically adapted. The queens average 2.5 mm in length, and have a concave form and large pads and claws. Tetramorium inquilinum is frail and unable to care for itself, with mandibles too small and weak to handle anything but liquid food, sting and poison glands small, and glands that produce food for larvae and protection against bacteria are completely absent. Its exoskeleton is thin and its brain and central nerve cord are small and simplified." Uploaded on the host body. https://lnkd.in/dAZwcaV View in LinkedIn

HOMICIDAL NANNIES. "Achenbach and Foitzik collected 88 colonies of the slave-making P.americanus ant that had abducted workers from three species of Temnothorax. They found that the workers clearly care for the larvae, and nearly all of them were raised until their pupated. But at that point, the slaves’ behaviour changed dramatically, taking on a more homicidal bent." https://lnkd.in/d8qZ477 View in LinkedIn

OUT OF RIDER HAGGARD'S SHE. "In Teleutomyrmex schneideri...not only has the entire worker caste been eliminated, but the brain, glands and feeding apparatus have also been reduced. The parasitic Teleutomyrmex queen spends much of her life riding on the back of the host queen while being fed by the workers of the host species.” If this was a horror movie you would not believe it. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29774232?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents View in LinkedIn

SLAVE REBELLION. "Slave ‘nannies’ will sometimes turn homicidal on their charges – something that never happens when they tend to their own young. In what’s being labelled variously as an evolutionary resistance to enslavement or a downright act of rebellion, captured worker ants will allow slavemaker young to die through neglect (dumping them in a corner and allowing mould to overcome them) or even consuming them once they reach the pupal stage." https://lnkd.in/dJrQzst View in LinkedIn

BAIT AND SWITCH. "As every ant in the colony is ‘programmed’ to obey the every whim of their queen, the colony becomes in time nothing but a proxy for the slavemaker race, as all workers are forced to care for the new brood of masters that the queen hatches. Unknowingly, they will dutifully and carefully tend to the seeds of their own demise." https://lnkd.in/dJrQzst View in LinkedIn

INFILTRATION. "In certain species, an even more insidious technique is used. During the chaos of the raid, a young slavemaker queen will infiltrate the target colony and kill the queen. Having completed this act of matronly regicide, she will then ‘impersonate’ the queen by consuming the pheromones still present in her rivals’ dead body." https://lnkd.in/dJrQzst View in LinkedIn