Description
English: Profile view of ant Polyergus rufescens specimen casent0173859.
Date 28 January 2008, 16:37:02
Source AntWeb.org http://www.antweb.org/bigPicture.do?name=casent0173859&number=1&shot=p
Author April Nobile
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Polyergus_rufescens_casent0173859_profile_1.jpg

Polyergus rufescens is a species of slave-making ant native to southern Europe and parts of Asia, commonly referred to as the European Amazon ant or as the slave-making ant. It is an obligatory social parasite, unable to feed itself or look after the colony and reliant on ants of another species to undertake these tasks. To replenish these servant ants it raids nearby ant colonies and carries home pupae and larvae and these are reared to provide future workers for the colony. A newly mated female Polyergus rufescens needs to make its way into one of these "host" nests, kill the host queen and be accepted by the host workers in her place. Order: Hymenoptera, Family: Formicidae.
Synonyms:
Formica rufescens Latreille, 1798
Polyergus testacea (Fabricius, 1804)