Cooperative prey-retrieving in the ant Cataglyphis floricola: an unusual short-distance recruitment |
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Authors: | F Amor P Ortega X Cerdá R Boulay |
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Institution: | 1. Estación Biológica de Do?ana, CSIC, Avda. Américo Vespucio s/n, 41092, Seville, Spain 2. Departamento de Biología Animal, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Granada, Campus de Fuentenueva, 18071, Granada, Spain
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Abstract: | Cataglyphis ants are mostly scavengers adapted to forage individually in arid environments. Although they are widely thought to have
lost the capacity of recruitment, we provide evidence that C. floricola foragers that find a large prey near their nest are able to solicit the help of nestmates to carry it cooperatively. After
discovering a non-transportable prey, these ants readily return to their nest and stimulate the exit of several recruits.
This rudimentary form of recruitment, which is absent in the sympatric species C. rosenhaueri, is only employed when the prey is sufficiently close to the nest entrance (<1 m) and does not allow the food location to
be communicated. Instead, C. floricola recruits search for the prey in all directions until they discover it and transport it cooperatively to their nest. |
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