The Habits of Pheidole a Militicida Wheeler (Hymenoptera:Formicidae)

During the winter of 959 the writers were able to study a num- ber of .nests of Pheidole militicida Wh.These were situated in an area.along the eastern base ot the Chiricahua Mountains, six to nine miles north of Portal, Arizona.Extended field studies were made on these colonies and samples taken from them were placed in small Janet nests and observed at the Southwestern Research Station.The need for such work will be clear to anyone amiliar with W. M. Wheeler's remarkable views on the habits o militici3a.Wheeler's initial acquaintance with this ant was made on November oth, 9o, at Benson, Arizona.A day or two later he found other colonies at Hereford.If Wheeler's hypothesis on the habits of this species is to be appreciated properly, it is important to.under- stand exactly what information he secured from these colonies.Before he excavated them, Wheeler ound the remains ot numerousmajors on some o the chaff piles.The material in the Wheeler Col- lection indicates that these remains consisted largely of head capsules which lacked all appendages.If Wheeler had found living majors in the nests that he excavated, these disarticulated remains would have received scant attention.Unfortunately, Wheeler did not find living majors in the colonies which he dug out.But it should be remem- bered that after Wheeler had examined the nests at Benson and Hereford, he knew surprisingly little about the ants that were living in them.He could not even be sure that the majors, whose remains he had discovered on the chaff piles, had come from the nests where he found them.All that Wheeler knew was that he had taken the minor of an undescribed species of Pheidole from these nests and that, after considerable digging, he had been unable to secure any accom- panying majors.