A colony may capture 14,000 pupae in a single season. When successful, the scout returns to its nest and recruits nest-mates to initiate the raid, during which slave-maker ants seize a brood and bring it back home. First, scouts individually search for potential host nests. The parasite workers are specialized for conducting raids in a two-step process. This is achieved by raiding other nests in a process called slave raiding.
Parasitized nests need to replenish the host workers periodically. Two of the latter already incorporated into the mixed colony are visible to the right of the nest entrance. Polyergus lucidus returning from raid on Formica incerta. Workers of Polyergus, in contrast, were unable to care for their brood, and experienced high mortality. sanguinea changed dramatically within 30 days of their removal, with workers becoming self-sufficient at feeding and brood care. In laboratory tests, when captured workers were removed from colonies of Formica sanguinea and Polyergus rufescens, the behavior of F. Alternatively, facultative slave-making ants, like those in the Formica sanguinea complex, represent an intermediate parasitic group, between free-living species and obligatory slave-making species. Slave-making ants may be permanent social parasites, thus depending on enslaved host ants throughout their whole lives and unable to function without them in which case they are termed obligate slave-makers.
Unlike brood parasitism, the inquiline remains within the nest and typically its brood does not outnumber the host's brood. Ī related type of social parasitism is called inquilinism, in which a reproductive enters a host colony, lays eggs, and relies on the host colony to rear its offspring. Theft of brood for the purpose of employing the stolen individual's efforts in support of the thief is called dulosis (from Greek δοῦλος, "slave"), but the term "slave-making" is used in older literature and is still common.
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