The Male Mating Strategy of the Ant Formica Subpolita Mayr (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): Swarming, Mating, and Predation Risk

All-male mating swarms of the ant Formica subpolita wereobserved at the same site, and sometimes on the same plants, forsix consecutive years (1988–1993) in southwestern Montana. Theswarms, sometimes numbering thousands of males, occurred aboveand within shrubs and clumps of tall grasses. Mating occurred onthe plant surface below the swarms and lasted for 62 s on average.Females controlled who they mated with and were observed tomate with up to 4 different males, before dispersing from swarmsites. I obtained ~900 records of predation on F. subpolita atswarms. Twenty-one species of predator were observed, the foremostof which were the robber fly Efferia staminea and the spider Dictyna coloradensis. With the exception of prey of the diggerwasp Aphilanthops subfrigidus, which prey only on females, preyrecords were overwhelmingly male-biased. Results are comparedto observations on other species of ants, especially those in thegenus Pogonomyrmex