Glandular Sources and Specificity of Some Chemical Releasers of Social Behavior in Dolichoderine Ants

Species of the ant subfamily Dolichoderinae are excellent subjects or the experimental analysis of chcmical communication. The group is advanced evolutionarily, and large, complex societies are the. rule. During foraging, workers of many species orm long, conspicuous columns tightly bound to persistent odor trails. When disturbed they void volatile secretions that seem likely to function, at least in part, as olfactory releasers of alarm behavior. Furthermore, the dolichodefines have recently been the object of extensive biochemical research by Pavan, Cavill and their associates (cf. Pavan, I95O; Pavan and Ronchetti, I955; Pavan and Trave, I958; Cavill, Ford, and Locksley, I956; Cavill and Locksley, I957). Several terpenoids including the previously unknown iridomyrmecin, iso-iridomyrmecin, and iridodial, have been identified as components of the anal gland secretion of various species. The availability of these substances in purified forfi has made possible for the first time the precise behavioral assay ot natural secretory products in ants.