Early learning and cocoon nursing behaviour in the red wood-ant formica liiguhris zett. (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Abstract

Laboratory experiments were performed to examine the possible role of early learning in the recognition of cocoons in the ant Formica lugubris Zett. Young workers of comparable age were removed from nurseries a few hours after hatching and kept for 15 days in the presence of homospecific cocoons (first group). Given a choice between their cocoons and those of Formica rtifa L., they invariably chose and attended the former. A second group of young workers following their hatching were kept in contact with only F. riifa cocoons for the 15 days. They cared only for the heterospecific cocoons, whereas homospecific cocoons were destroyed and eaten. A third group of young workers were reared in the absence of any cocoon from their hatching throughout the period. When subsequently given a choice between homo- and heterospecific cocoons they destroyed all cocoons.These results show that stimuli originating from cocoons are indispensable for the ontogeny of recognition processes and nursing behaviour in this species of ants. This demonstrates the presence of early learning phenomena, and supports the results obtained in similar and previous researches on two other sibling species of the Formica r;//j-group, namely F. polycteiia and F. riifa. © 1982 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.