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HYBERNATION OF FORMICA HERCULEANA, Linn
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2012
Extract
On the 20th October last, when in Brighton, Ont., I went to the woods in search of hybernating insects, and while examining the prostrate trunk of a small pine, found several female specimens of our large black ant, F. herculeana (ligniperda Latr.) in their winter quarters. Each ant was in an oval excavation in the wood, just under the bark, about an inch long and half an inch wide and deep. In each cell was found a single ♀ ant, together with from six to fifteen larvæ. On tearing off the bark, about half a dozen cells were exposed, on different and widely separated parts of the trunk. In one or two instances there was a single worker ant with the large ♀. The larvæ were about an eighth of an inch long, and were all alive. They were, in every case, crowded together in a mass, each one in the same position, with the head bent over in front. This observation is, I think, interesting, as it gives a clue to the manner in which colonies of this wood-destroying ant are established.
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