Nest cedar lumber. When digging the nests, they use the wood shavings scraped from the wall to create partitions within the tunnels. The nests are usually round and have about 1-4 tunnels, each with multiple branches. Because these materials are often useful for humans in construction, "X. virgininica's" nesting behavior presents the disadvantage of weakening wood in manmade structures. The abundance of biological resources within the nest has led to a number of specialized predators. The aardvark and the ant eater use long tongues to prey upon termite and ant nests. Birds such as the honey buzzard specialize on wasp and
Slave-making ant slave-maker ant offspring. This is because "slaves can gain indirect fitness benefits by reducing parasite pressure on nearby host colonies, because these are often closely related to the slaves". Thus, the slave ants protect their native colonies from further raids by slave-maker ants. The reproductive behavior of slave-making ants usually consists in synchronous emergence of sexuals followed by a nuptial flight and the invasion of a host nest, but also in some cases females display a mating call around the natal nest to attract males and immediately after mating search for a host nest to usurp. Only one slave species