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Updated: May 12, 2025
In many of the pouches I noticed the eggs and young ants, and in some I saw a few dark-coloured Coccidae or aphides; but my attention had not been at that time directed to the latter as supplying the ants with food, and I did not examine a sufficient number of pouches to determine whether they were constant occupants of the nests or not.
In the tropics their place is taken in a great measure by species of Coccidae and genera of Homoptera, such as Membracis and its allies. This ant took great care of the scale-insects, and attacked savagely any one interfering with them, as I often found to my cost, when trying to clear my pines, by being stung severely by them.
The leaves of the plant are guarded by the ants, the ants are provided with houses by the plant, and food by the Coccidae or aphides, and the latter are effectually protected by the ants in their common habitation.
It is the pupa, and not the larva, of the Chironomus which has this power; and Grimm further shows that this case, to a certain extent, "unites that of the Cecidomyia with the parthenogenesis of the Coccidae;" the term parthenogenesis implying that the mature females of the Coccidae are capable of producing fertile eggs without the concourse of the male.
This case is not like the last one, where the tree has provided food and shelter for the ants, but rather one where the ant has taken possession of the tree, and brought with it the Coccidae; but I believe that its presence must be beneficial. I have cut into some dozens of the Cecropia trees, and never could find one that was not tenanted by ants.
The ants gain access by making a hole from the outside, and then burrow through the partitions, thus getting the run of the whole stem. In one cell eggs will be found, in another grubs, and in a third pupae, all lying loosely. In another cell, by itself, a queen ant will be found, surrounded by walls made of a brown waxy-looking substance, along with about a dozen Coccidae to supply her with food.
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