Ontogenesis of visual and olfactory kin recognition,in the ant Myrmica sabuleti (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

In the present work, firstly, ant emergence was observed: it is a long, stereotyped, precarious event which may require the help of congeners. Then, our experiments on Myrmica sabuleti Meinert 1861 callow ants emerging apart from or inside their colony showed the following points. 1. Newly emerged workers, even if having never olfactorily perceived nestmates, are attracted by congeners’ odor. They can distinguish such an odor from that of another species of Myrmica as well as somewhat from that of alien workers of the same species. So, they might have acquired, at least partly, the knowledge of their congeners’ odor during their larval life. 2. Callow ants having visually perceived congeners at their emergence move towards a presented congener’s washed corpse. Callow ants having emerged without seeing any congeners do not move towards such a corpse. Callow ants having emerged beside a piece of thyme moved towards a non-odorous (solvent-washed) piece of thyme. So, ants may acquire, at least partly, the knowledge of the visual aspect of their species just at their emergence, probably by imprinting. 3. Very young workers confronted with their congeners’ odor on one hand and their congeners’ visual aspect on the other hand, somewhat prefer the odor, even if these young ants belong to a species which exclusively uses its vision for navigating. So, for very young ants, whatever the species, odors are more important and better known than visual characters.