Honeypot ant

Myrmecocystus honeypot ants, showing the repletes or plerergates, their abdomens swollen to store honey, above ordinary workers

Honeypot ants, also called honey ants, are ants which have specialized workers (repletes,[1] plerergates, or rotunds) that consume large amounts of food to the point that their abdomens swell enormously. Other ants then extract nourishment from them, through the process of trophallaxis. They function as living larders. Honeypot ants belong to any of several genera, including Myrmecocystus and Camponotus. They were first documented in 1881 by Henry C. McCook,[2][3] and described further in 1908 by William Morton Wheeler.[4]

  1. ^ "Replete". Antbase. Retrieved 30 July 2016.
  2. ^ McCook, Henry C. (1882). The Honey and Occident Ants.
  3. ^ McCook, Henry C. (1907). Nature's craftsmen; popular studies of ants and other insects. Harper and Brothers. pp. 96–111.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Wheeler1908 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).