Banded sugar ant meat ants, which have been observed blocking banded sugar ant nesting holes with pebbles and soil to prevent them from leaving their nest during the early hours of the day. The ants counter this by preventing meat ants from leaving their nest by blocking their nesting holes with debris, a behaviour known as nest-plugging. If meat ant nests are encroached by trees or other shade, banded sugar ants may invade and take over the nest, since the health of the colony may deteriorate from overshadowing. Members of an affected meat ant colony later move to a nearby satellite nest that
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