W. L. Brown, Jr.
Predation of Arthropod Eggs by the Ant Genera Proceratium and Discothyrea.
Psyche 64(3):115, 1957.

This article at Hindawi Publishing: https://doi.org/10.1155/1957/45849
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19571 Brown - Predation of Arthropod Eggs 115 PREDATION OF ARTHROPOD EGGS BY THE ANT GENERA PRO- CERATIUM AND DISCOTHYREA. - In my recently published revision of the genera of the ant tribe Ectatommini (Brown, 1958, Bull. Mus. Gomp. Zool. 118 : 246, 252-253, 336) I noted briefly observations indicating that North American spe- cies of Proceratium Roger (including Sysphincta auct.) normally feed on various arthropod eggs, and that such eggs are often stored in their nests in large numbers. One of the nests observed to contain eggs was collected by E. 0. Wilson and myself at Ravenel, South Carolina, during June, 1957. This nest was packed with spherical eggs (and a few smaller fusiform ones) ; we assumed that they were eggs of geophilomorph centipedes or spiders, both of which were abundant in the leaf litter and rotting pine bark from which the ai~t. nest was taken at the base of a large loblolly pine. This nest was maintained for one year in a glass-topped plaster ant-chamber, during which time it subsisted entire- ly or nearly entirely on eggs (more rarely on soft, hatching spiderlings) of various species of spiders gathered in east- ern Massachusetts. Larvae of other ants, and parts of other insects, were ignored by the Proceratium so far as observa- tions went. Spider eggs were stored in the brood chamber and in adjoining chambers. In feeding on the eggs, the work- erg ard queen hold the egg against the floor with their fore- legs and cut through the shell, immersing their mandibles in the egg contents. Partly deflated eggs are placed on the larvae, which feed directly.
My speculation that the similar genus Discothyrea might also feed on eggs of other arthropods now tends to be con- firmed by an interesting find by Philip F. Darlington, who has collected four nests of Discothyrea bidens Clark (or near) in the Mt. Royal Range, near Barrington Tops, north- eastern New South Wales, during October, 1957. Each nest contained numerous eggs of arthropods: spherical eggs (of spiders or Chilopoda?) from about 0.08 to 0.26 mm. in dia- meter, and fewer elliptical ones in two of the nests, averag- ing 0.17 X 0.08 mm. In the alcohol, none of the larvae is attached to eggs, but the circumstances leave little doubt that the eggs were being stored as food. - W. L. BROWN, JR.. Museum of Comparative Zoology.
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