Essays Upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems. Weismann August
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Название: Essays Upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems

Автор: Weismann August

Издательство: Public Domain

Жанр: Биология

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СКАЧАТЬ summer generation of Andricus, which belongs to the extensive genus Aphilotrix, have also a long life. I have kept the smaller Andricus (such as A. nudus, A. cirratus, A. noduli) alive for a week, and the larger (A. inflator, A. curvator, A. ramuli) for two weeks. The smaller species pierce the young buds when quite soft, but the larger ones bore through the fully grown buds protected by tough scales. The ovary of the former contains 400 to 500 eggs, that of the latter over 600.

      ‘The agamic winter generations live much longer. The species of Neuroterus have the shortest life; they live for two weeks at the outside; on the other hand, species of Aphilotrix live quite four weeks, and Dryophanta and Biorhiza even longer. I have kept Dryophanta scutellaris alive for three months. The number of eggs in these agamic Cynipidae is much larger: Dryophanta and Aphilotrix contain 1200 and Neuroterus about 1000.’

      It is evidently, therefore, a general rule that the duration of life is directly proportional to the number of eggs and to the time and energy expended in oviposition. It must of course be understood that, here as in all other instances, these are not the only factors which determine the duration of life, but many other factors, at present unknown, may be in combination with them and assist in producing the result. For example, it is very probable that the time of year at which the imagos appear exerts some indirect influence. The long-lived Biorhiza emerges from the gall in the middle of winter, and at once begins to deposit eggs in the oak buds. Although the insect is not sensitive to low temperature, for I have myself seen oviposition proceeding when the thermometer stood at 5° R., yet very severe frost would certainly lead to interruption and would cause the insect to shelter itself among dead leaves on the ground. Such interruptions may be of long duration and frequently repeated, so that the remarkably long life of this species may perhaps be looked upon as an adaptation to its winter life.

Ants. Lasius flavus lays its eggs in the autumn, and the young larvae pass the winter in the nest. The males and females leave the cocoons in June, and pair during July and August. The males fly out of the nest with the females, but they do not return to it; ‘they die shortly after pairing.’ It is also believed that the females do not return to the nest, but found new colonies; this point is however one of the most uncertain in the natural history of ants. On the other hand it is quite certain that the female may live for years within the nest, continuing to lay fertilized eggs. Old females are sometimes found in the colony, with their jaws worn down to the hypodermis.

      Breeding experiments confirm these statements. P. Huber17 and Christ have already put the life of the female at three to four years, and Sir John Lubbock, who has been lately occupied with the natural history of ants, was able to keep a female worker of Formica sanguinea alive for five years; and he has been kind enough to write and inform me that two females of Formica fusca, which he captured in a wood together with ten workers, in December 1874, are still alive (July 1881), so that these insects live as imagos for six and a half years or more18.

On the other hand, Sir John Lubbock never succeeded in keeping the males ‘alive longer than a few weeks.’ Both the older and more recent observers agree in stating that female ants, like queen bees, are always protected as completely as possible from injury and danger. Dr. A. Forel, whose thorough knowledge of Swiss ants is well known, writes to me,—‘The female ants are only once fertilized, and are then tended by the workers, being cleaned and fed in the middle of the nest: one often finds them with only three legs, and with their chitinous armour greatly worn. They never leave the centre of the nest, and their only duty is to lay eggs.’

      With regard to the workers, Forel believes that their constitution would enable them to live as long as the females (as the experiments of Lubbock also indicate), and the fact that in the wild state they generally die sooner than the females is ‘certainly connected with the fact that they are exposed to far greater dangers.’ The same relation seems also to obtain among bees, but with them it has not been shown that in confinement the workers live as long as the queens.

       Bees. According to von Berlepsch19 the queen may as an exception live for five years, but as a rule survives only two or three years. The workers always seem to live for a much shorter period, generally less than a year. Direct experiments upon isolated or confined bees, or upon marked individuals in the wild state, do not prove this, but the statistics obtained by bee-keepers confirm the above. Every winter the numbers in a hive diminish from 12,000-20,000 to 2000-3000. The queen lays the largest number of eggs in the spring, and the workers which die before the winter are replaced by those which emerge in the summer, autumn or during a mild winter. The queen lays eggs at such a variable rate throughout the year that the above-mentioned inequality in numbers is explained. The workers do not often live for more than six to seven months, and at the time of their greatest labour, (May to July), only three months. An attempt to calculate the length of life of the workers and drones by taking stock at the end of summer, gives six months for the former and four months for the latter20.

      The drones do not as a rule live so long as four months, for they meet with a violent death before the end of this period. The well-known slaughter of the drones is not, according to the latest observations, brought about directly by means of the stings of the workers, but by these latter driving away the useless drones from the food so that they perish of starvation.

      Wasps. It is interesting that among these near relations of the bees, the life of the female should be much shorter, corresponding to the much lower degree of specialization found in the colonies. The females of Polistes gallica and of Vespa not only lay eggs but take part in building the cells and in collecting food; they are therefore obliged to use all parts of the body more actively and especially the wings, and are exposed to greater danger from enemies.

      It is well known from Leuckart’s observations, that the so-called ‘workers’ of Polistes gallica and Bombus are not arrested females like the workers of a bee-hive, but are females which although certainly smaller, are in every way capable of being fertilized and of reproduction. Von Siebold has nevertheless proved that they are not fertilized, but reproduce parthenogenetically.

      The fertilized female which survives the winter, commences to found a colony at the beginning of May: the larvæ, which hatch from the first eggs, which are about fifteen in number, become pupæ at the beginning of June, and the imagos appear towards the end of the same month. These are all small ‘workers,’ and they perform such good service in tending the second brood, that the latter attain the size of the female which founded the colony; only differing from her in the perfect condition of their wings, for by this time her wings are greatly worn away.

      The males appear at the beginning of July; their spermatozoa are mature in August, and pairing then takes place with certain ‘special females which require fertilization’ which have in the meantime emerged from their cocoons. These are the females which live through the winter and found new colonies in the following spring. The old females of the previous winter die, and do not live beyond the summer at the beginning of which they founded colonies. At the first appearance of frost, the young fertilized females seek out winter quarters; the males which never survive the winter, do not take this course, but perish in October. The parthenogenetic females, which remain in the nest during the nuptial flight, also perish.

      The males of Polistes gallica do not live longer than three months—from July to the beginning of October; the parthenogenetic females live a fortnight longer at the outside—from the middle of June to October, but the later generations have a shorter life. The sexual females alone live for about a year, including the winter sleep.

      A similar course of events takes place in the genus Vespa. In both these genera the possibility of reproduction is not restricted to a single female in the nest, but is shared by a number of females. In the genus Apis СКАЧАТЬ



<p>17</p>

‘Recherches sur les mœurs des Fourmis indigènes,’ Genève, 1810.

<p>18</p>

These two female ants were still alive on the 25th of September following Sir John Lubbock’s letter, so that they live at least seven years. Cf. ‘Observations on Ants, Bees, and Wasps,’ Part VIII. p. 385; Linn. Soc. Journ. Zool., vol. xv. 1881.

[Sir John Lubbock has kindly given me further information upon the duration of life of these two queen ants. Since the receipt of his letter, the facts have been published in the Journal of the Linnean Society (Zoology), vol. xx. p. 133. I quote in full the passage which refers to these ants:—

‘Longevity.—It may be remembered that my nests have enabled me to keep ants under observation for long periods, and that I have identified workers of Lasius niger and Formica fusca which were at least seven years old, and two queens of Formica fusca which have lived with me ever since December 1874. One of these queens, after ailing for some days, died on the 30th July, 1887. She must then have been more than thirteen years old. I was at first afraid that the other one might be affected by the death of her companion. She lived, however, until the 8th August, 1888, when she must have been nearly fifteen years old, and is therefore by far the oldest insect on record.

‘Moreover, what is very extraordinary, she continued to lay fertile eggs. This remarkable fact is most interesting from a physiological point of view. Fertilization took place in 1874 at the latest. There has been no male in the nest since then, and, moreover, it is, I believe, well established that queen ants and queen bees are fertilized once for all. Hence the spermatozoa of 1874 must have retained their life and energy for thirteen years, a fact, I believe, unparalleled in physiology.’

‘I had another queen of Formica fusca which lived to be thirteen years old, and I have now a queen of Lasius niger which is more than nine years old, and still lays fertile eggs, which produce female ants.’

Both the above-mentioned queens may have been considerably older, for it is impossible to estimate their age at the time of capture. It is only certain (as Sir John Lubbock informs me in his letter) that they must have been at least nine months old (when captured), as the eggs of F. fusca are laid in March or early in April.’ The queens became gradually ‘somewhat lethargic and stiff in their movements (before their death), but there was no loss of any limb nor any abrasion.’ This last observation seems to indicate that queen ants may live for a much longer period in the wild state, for it is stated above that the chitin is often greatly worn, and some of the limbs lost (see pp. 48, 51, and 52).—E. B. P.]

<p>19</p>

A. von Berlepsch, ‘Die Biene und ihre Zucht,’ etc., 3rd ed.; Mannheim, 1872.

<p>20</p>

E. Bevan, ‘Ueber die Honigbiene und die Länge ihres Lebens;’ abstract in Oken’s ‘Isis,’ 1844, p. 506.