In the present study, the effect of captivity on the behavioral patterns like activity-rest time budget, nesting, aggression etc. in a group of Polyrhachis lecteipennis has been documented. The ants were collected from the natural population and maintained in the laboratory keeping them either in a single formicarium or prepared formicaria interconnected with tubes to observe the behavior. About 8 types of behavioral pattern of ants were noticed. In case of necrophoresis (carrying of dead nest-mates), the space inside the formicarium was not found to be sufficient to dispose off the dead nest-mates and therefore, all the time the workers carried the dead nest-mates haphazardly possibly in search of suitable disposal area. When the worker ants with dead nest-mates were allowed to leave the formicarium, they left, disposed and came back to the formicarium. With regard to the nesting behavior, it was observed that the silk secreting property was not the only larval character, the adult workers, on the other hand, could also secrete some amount of silk. When the natural hibiscus leaf-nest dried up in the formicarium, the workers along with queens left the natural leaf-nest and make ‘tube-nest’ in the formicarium. The workers carried all the larvae and pupae to the newly forming ‘tube-nest’. It was also observed that sometimes workers took the animal food inside the ‘tube-nest’ and sometimes not. They were very aggressive towards the intruder ants but when fellow members, separated for several months were re-introduced, the residents did show almost no aggression. The maximum number (n = 10) of worker ants were observed as active during the months of May and June. Afterwards, the number gradually declined to become lowest (n = 3) in the month of January. Among the different behavior patterns studied herein, most of them were found to be innate or ‘hard-wired’, did not require the presence of stimuli like large sized natural colony, queen, egg, larvae, pupae etc. inside the formicarium. © 2012, Zoological Society, Kolkata, India.
