ORIGINS OF THE HOSTILITY ASSAY

     Myrmecologists have long used the almost universal hostility of conspecific workers from different colonies as a handy way to determine the limits of polydomous colonies. In its simplest form, this consists of transferring a worker from one nest to the immediate vicinity of another and watching the responses of resident workers. If the transferred individual is freely accepted, the two nests are part of the same colony; if she is attacked, they are from different colonies.
     As part of my historical studies, I have wondered how long this assay has been in use, as it says something about how colony limits have been conceived. Without having surveyed the literature rigorously, the earliest definite uses of this technique that have come to my attention are from the late 1800s. Henry Christopher McCook (1877, 1878) used it to delineate colonies of the Allegheny mound-builder, Formica exsectoides, as did G.A.J. Rothney (1890) for the Asian weaver ant, Oecophylla smaragdina. Neither author made any reference to any earlier use of this approach but treated it as a fairly obvious innovation, which I suppose it is if one is disposed to conceive of mutually hostile polydomous colonies.
     R.A.F. de Reaumur, whose book on ants was written around 1744 but apparently unknown until the 1920s, makes no mention of such a technique. I regret that I have no access to Pierre Huber's (1810, english edition 1820) book on ants, and when I read it a while back I didn't note whether he used the technique. One can't think of everything.
     I would be very receptive to any reference to use of the hostility assay in ants from before the 1870s.


Christopher K. Starr
University of the West Indies St Augustine
Trinidad & Tobago
email: ckstarr99@hotmail.com