Chalepoxenus muellerianus

Xenobiotic ants Chalepoxenus muellerianus Formicoxenus nitidulus F. quebescensis and F. provancheri... 

Selection pressures on cuticular chemical resemblance between hosts and parasites are expected to be even weaker when parasite sexuals are taken into account. Indeed, sexuals are cared for by enslaved host workers and live inside the natal colonies until the mating flight. As expected, in Chalepoxenus muellerianus (a slave making ant which enslaves multiple hosts of the related Temnothorax species), the complex hydrocarbon profiles of sexuals depend on the host-rearing species, with a bias towards the host species used by each parasite population, but with differences among the chemical signatures of parasite sexuals and workers of the host species (Beibl et al., 2007). It is obvious, from the example... 

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See also in sourсe #XX -- [ , ]

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