Pharaoh ant site. Pharaoh ant colonies appear to prefer familiar nests to novel nests while budding. This suggests the ability for colonies to remember certain qualities of their living space. However, if the novel (unfamiliar) nest is of superior quality, the colony may initially move toward the familiar, but will eventually select the unfamiliar. The colony assumes the familiar nest is preferable, unless they sense better qualities in the novel nest. This decision-making process seeks to minimize the time the colony is without a nest while optimizing the nest the colony finally chooses. The number of available budding locations has a large
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