Last weekend, I saw a L. cf. umbratus running around with a yellow ant between her mandibles. According to the literature, yellow Lasius species do not belong to the regular hosts of L. umbratus. Since the gyne was running around with the ant, I presume she actively selected this worker instead of being attacked by her; I cannot prove against this hypothesis though, as I didn't follow the act from the beginning.
Now I wonder, how specific is the selction of hosts by L. umbratus gynes? Is the selection of the "wrong" species by the gynes something to be considered as a possibility?
Hi Carl-Ulrich, I have never observed queens of umbratus or meridionalis to take "yellow" workers, only workers of L. niger or psammophilus (Denmark, the Netherlands). Did you identified the yellow species yet? Might be important to know. As I remember it rightly, workers of many Lasius social parasites share citronellal or citral as a mandibular secretion and umbratus as well, although I do not know if queens have this odor. If the worker was an umbratus then the strategy of the umbratus queen was not chemical infiltration by using an host worker, but using citronellal as an alternative to infiltrate a host nest. American Lasius (Acanthomyops) social parasites al have citronellal and incipient queens apparently do not take host workers to enter host nests (Raczkowski thesis 2008).
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ap/10?0::NO:10:P10_ACCESSION_NUM:osu1221749471
Hi Tom,
thanks for your answer and for linking me to the dissertation. Unfortunately, I didn't take the specimens with me, as at the time I wasn't aware that this was a rarely documented observation. In theory, the gyne could have been attacked by the worker, however, I didn't notice any difference in behavior between this gyne and another ony carrying around a Lasius s.str.; they both ran around aimlessly with the workers between their mandibles.
Hi Carl-Ulrich, one my student collected a mixed sample of L. flavus and L. umbratus 2 years ago from one nest, but we did not find the nest again. Its impossible to say whether it was plesiobiosis or a case of rare parasitism. Everything is possible in nature...
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