Insect. Soc. 54 (2007) 183 – 188 0020-1812/07/020183-6 Insectes Sociaux DOI 10.1007/s00040-007-0930-0 Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel, 2007 Research article Permanent loss of wings in queens of the ant Odontomachus coquereli from Madagascar M. Molet1, C. Peeters1 and B.L. Fisher2 1 Laboratoire dEcologie CNRS UMR 7625, UniversitØ Pierre et Marie Curie, 7 quai Saint Bernard, 75005 Paris, France; e-mail:
[email protected],
[email protected] 2 Department of Entomology, California Academy of Sciences, 875 Howard Street, San Francisco, California 94103, USA; e-mail:
[email protected] Received 15 December 2006; revised 26 February 2007; accepted 1 March 2007. Published Online First 20 March 2007 Abstract. Winged queens are the most common repro- Keywords: Ergatoid queen, morphometry, colony fission, ductives in ants. They are morphologically specialized for intermorph, caste. independent colony foundation, with wings for long- range dispersal and metabolic reserves to raise the first brood. However independent foundation can sometimes be selected against and replaced by fission, featuring Introduction short-range dispersal on the ground and reproductives that are dependent on the wingless workers for all non- Colonial reproduction has a major impact on the mor- reproductive tasks. We investigated the evolutionary phology of reproductives in ants. Independent colony consequences of this transition on the morphology of foundation is performed by winged queens that disperse the reproductives by collecting 30 colonies of Odonto- by flight, mate and found their colony alone (Hçlldobler machus coquereli from Madagascar, the only species in and Wilson, 1990). High mortality of foundresses can the genus where winged queens have never been found.