January 17, 2014

SLAVE HUNTING THROUGH CAMOUFLAGE AND FENCING: THE PILLAGE ANT

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A group of scientists from the University of Mainz and the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History Goerlitz, headed by Susanne Foitzik and Bernhard Seifert, recently described a new slave-making ant species from the eastern USA. They baptized the new ant Temnothorax pilagens – from pilere (Latin): to pluck, plunder or pillage. The paper was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.