The Ants That Raid Other Colonies for Workers
Some ants raid other colonies, steal their young, and raise them as workers while the raiders themselves mainly specialize in launching these raids.
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Some ants have evolved an extraordinary form of social parasitism: they raid other ant colonies and carry away developing young, especially pupae and larvae. Those captured ants mature inside the raiding colony and become workers that perform the everyday jobs needed to keep the nest running. In obligate slave-making species, the arrangement is especially extreme. The raiding ants are highly specialized for attacking other colonies, while the captured workers handle tasks such as foraging, caring for brood, and maintaining the nest. Some species have physical adaptations that make them effective raiders but poor at ordinary colony work, leaving them dependent on their captured workforce. This behavior is known as dulosis, and it has evolved in several different groups of ants. The result is a colony whose survival depends on repeatedly obtaining workers from other colonies rather than producing its entire workforce in the usual way.
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