Ins. Soc. 38:293-305 (1991) 1015-1621/91/030293-13 $1.50 + 0.20/0 9 1991 Birkh/iuser Verlag, Basel Ontogeny of queen attraction to workers in the ant Cataglyphis cursor (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) E Berton 1, A. Lenoir 2 E. NowbahariZ and S. Barreau i * Laboratoire d'Ethologie et Psychophysiologie, Facultk des Sciences, Parc de Grandmont, 37200 Tours, France 2 Laboratoire d'Ethologie et Sociobiologie, URA CNRS 667, Universitb Paris Nord, Av. J. B. Clbment, 93430 Villetaneuse, France Key words." Ontogeny, Formicidae, learning, queen attractant cues, queen recog- nition, Cataglyphis cursor. Summary The behaviour of Cataglyphis cursor workers towards queens at 15 days, one month or two months after worker emergence was tested. Workers reared entirely with their own maternal queen were tested with this queen or with an unfamiliar alien queen. Workers transferred within 48 h of emerging to a new definitive nest with an alien queen were tested with this queen or with the original maternal queen. The degree of attraction to each of these queens and the workers' behavioural repertoire were measured and analysed. The results showed the following: 1) The attractiveness of queens and the workers' queen recognition behaviour were linked. 2) Al- though unfamiliar alien queens hardly attract workers, familiar alien queens were as attrac- tive as maternal queens, and induced the same strongly marked and unique worker response, indicating that workers learn queen attractant cues in the days immediately after emergence. 3) Agonistic reactions were observed, but workers continued to be attracted to their maternal queen even after developing an attraction response to an alien queen with which they had been reared. These results agree with the proposal that queens produce two kinds of pheromones, those that attract workers and those that mediate recognition of queens by workers. These re- sults show the ability of workers to discriminate between queens. Workers are attracted to any queen, but recognize as nestmates only maternal or alien queens with which they have been maintained. 4) The differential in worker attraction and recognition from 15 days to 2 months and its modifications by post-imaginal experience illustrate worker behavioural ontogeny, which is a basis of social discrimination. Introduction The fundamental characteristics of structurally stable societies are the forces pro- moting cohesion and the integration of individual behaviour. These characteris- tics gave rise to the "superorganism" concept (Wheeler, 1928; Emerson, 1938) as the feature distinguishing true societies from aggregations of individuals merely occupying the same space.