TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hölldobler, Bert
T1  - Queen Specific Exocrine Glands in Legionary Ants and Their Possible Function in Sexual Selection
T2  - PLoS ONE
N2  - The colonies of army ants and some other legionary ant species have single, permanently wingless queens with massive post petioles and large gasters. Such highly modified queens are called dichthadiigynes. This paper presents the unusually rich exocrine gland endowment of dichthadiigynes, which is not found in queens of other ant species. It has been suggested these kinds of glands produce secretions that attract and maintain worker retinues around queens, especially during migration. However, large worker retinues also occur in non-legionary species whose queens do not have such an exuberance of exocrine glands. We argue and present evidence in support of our previously proposed hypothesis that the enormous outfit of exocrine glands found in dichthadiigynes is due to sexual selection mediated by workers as the main selecting agents
KW  - exocrine glands
KW  - dichthadiigynes
KW  - legionary ants
KW  - queens
KW  - sexual selection
KW  - army ants
Y1  - 2016
UR  - https://opus.bibliothek.uni-wuerzburg.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/16705
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-167057
VL  - 11
IS  - 3
ER  -