Ant nest beetle secretions on their antennae and body allow them to interact with ant workers. It is believed that the beetles use an acoustic mechanism to successfully imitate the sounds of an ant queen thus permitting them access to the nest without alarming the ants. The defensive bombardier behaviour is never used against ants. Males of some species are attracted to lights during some parts of the season and are thought to disperse from one ant nest to another. Males are thought to be short-lived. These beetles feed on ant eggs, larvae and adults by piercing their mandibles into the abdomen or
Ant spider and use their mimicry to enter and leave the nest unmolested (if the ants detected them as intruders they would mass to repel and perhaps kill them). The spiders walk on only the three rear pairs of legs, and if they encounter an ant during their forays into the nest territory, they touch their front legs to the ant's antennae in the same way as another ant would with its own antennae. If they have already captured an ant, they then offer that towards the challenging ant, which inspects it and behaves towards the spider as if it were another