Animal Intelligence: The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV.Romanes, George John
Science
Animal Intelligence: The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV.
Romanes, George John
Animal behavior; Animal intelligence
When my eggs hatched I naturally thought that the
aphides belonged to one of the species usually found
on the roots of plants in the nests of _Lasius
flavus_. To my surprise, however, the young creatures
made the best of their way out of the nest, and,
indeed, were sometimes brought out by the ants
themselves. In vain I tried them with roots of grass,
&c.; they wandered uneasily about, and eventually
died. Moreover, they did not in any way resemble the
subterranean species. In 1878 I again attempted to
rear these young aphides; but though I hatched a great
many eggs, I did not succeed. This year, however, I
have been more fortunate. The eggs commenced to hatch
the first week in March. Near one of my nests of
_Lasius flavus_, in which I had placed some of the
eggs in question, was a glass containing living
specimens of several species of plants commonly found
on or around ants' nests. To this some of the young
aphides were brought by the ants. Shortly afterwards I
observed on a plant of daisy, in the axils of the
leaves, some small aphides, very much resembling those
from my nest, though we had not actually traced them
continuously. They seemed thriving, and remained
stationary on the daisy. Moreover, whether they had
sprung from the black eggs or not, the ants evidently
valued them, for they built up a wall of earth round
and over them. So things remained throughout the
summer, but on October 9 I found that the aphides had
laid some eggs exactly resembling those found in the
ants' nests; and on examining daisy plants from
outside, I found on many of them similar aphides, and
more or less of the same eggs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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