Polyergus is a genus of so-called "slave-raiding" ants. Its workers are largely incapable of caring for the colony. The species subsists as a social parasite, enslaving ants of the closely related Formica genus in massive colony-to-colony raids to carry out foraging, nursing, and other colony upkeep duties. New queens will enter foreign colonies of other species, kill the existing queen, and force the colony's workers to care for her brood. In biology, a genus (plural genera) is a grouping in the classification of living organisms having one or more related and morphologically similar species. ... Subfamilies Dorylomorph subfamilies Apomyrminae Cerapachyinae Dorylinae Ecitoninae Formicomorph subfamilies: Aneuretinae Dolichoderinae Formicinae - e. ... Species very many, see text Formica is a genus of ants. ...
References
Ward, Dale. (2005). [1] "Polyergus breviceps (Slave Raiding Ant)" Ants of Arizona.
Of these genera, Polyergus is recognized as, "the pinnacle (or nadir if you prefer) of the slave-holding way of life (Holldobler and Wilson, 1990)." This formicine antgenus contains five obligatory parasitic species which direct their slave-making raids against ants in the related genusFormica (Mori et al.
Workers and queens in the genusPolyergus are completely dependent on slaves as they are unable to feed themselves, care for their brood, or perform colony maintenance (Holldobler and Wilson, 1990).
Polyergus rufescens is commonly known as the European Amazon ant (Mori et al.
During one trip to visit my parents I was excited to find that a Polyergus colony had actually been established at the edge of the garden (it seems reasonably likely that this colony was a relative of the one in my neighbor's yard that I had observed years before).
When Polyergus "lucidus" lives with the velvety-haired, long-legged and very bristly F. schaufussi, it always has the form of the so-called subspecies longicornis, which has more hairs and longer legs than typical lucidus.
When the Polyergus and Formica species involved are differently colored (usually the case), these mixed worker populations are very striking to encounter.
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