Fire Ants Trophallaxis

Trophallaxis in fire ants is the transfer of food among members of nest through mouth-to-mouth (stomodeal) feeding. Trophallaxis is most highly developed in social insects such as ants, termites, wasps and bees. The Solenopsis invicta (red imported fire ants), individual colony members store food in their crops and regularly exchange it with other colony members and larvae to form a sort of "communal stomach" for the colony.

In this video, we used red imported fire ant workers and different staged larvae to demonstrated the traphallaxis using red color dyed food (bait). The food (bait) was dyed red color to demonstrate the flow of food within the colony.

This video was produced at National Taiwan University, Dept. of Entomology, Laboratory of Extension Entomology and Science Education, Taipei, Taiwan during my PhD study.