worker-minors

Updated: May 24, 2025

Whenever I made a breach in one of their covered ways, all the ants underneath were set in commotion, but the worker-minors remained behind to repair the damage, while the large-heads issued forth in a most menacing manner, rearing their heads and snapping their jaws with an expression of the fiercest rage and defiance.

Henry Walter Bates - The Naturalist on the River Amazons

In some districts it is so abundant that agriculture is almost impossible, and everywhere complaints are heard of the terrible pest. The workers of this species are of three orders, and vary in size from two to seven lines; some idea of them may be obtained from the accompanying woodcut. The worker-minors vary greatly in size, some being double the bulk of others.

Henry Walter Bates - The Naturalist on the River Amazons

They mount the tree in multitudes, the individuals being all worker-minors. Each one places itself on the surface of a leaf, and cuts, with its sharp scissor-like jaws, a nearly semicircular incision on the upper side; it then takes the edge between its jaws, and by a sharp jerk detaches the piece.

Henry Walter Bates - The Naturalist on the River Amazons

These large-headed members of the community have been considered by some authors as a soldier class, like the similarly-armed caste in termites but I found no proof of this, at least in the present species, as they always seemed to be rather less pugnacious than the worker-minors, and their distorted jaws disabled them from fastening on a plane surface like the skin of an attacking animal.

Henry Walter Bates - The Naturalist on the River Amazons