M: Let's see we should probably start by reviewing the four stages the ants go to. You know when the developing from the eggs.
W: Yeah. Ah…. I wrote that down somewhere on my notes.
M: I got right here! Let's see, they start off the egg, the ant lays the eggs after… I don't remember exactly how long they turn...
W: Oh yeah, yeah here says it. The eggs are very tiny and they hatch in a few days and become larvae.
M: And then they turn into pupae. That's one not move at all and then they…
W: Oh! Oh! Oh! I remember something interesting about the pupae stage that's before they are
full in mature and they can get captured by other ants and they become sort of slaves in other ants colony.
M: Yeah, Doctor Lucy even use the term slave maker ants, they'll be slave maker ants but go into other nests and steal the pupae. So when the pupae grow to adults they are like the slave of the other ants.
W: And these slaves, they actually do the work as the other ants would have to do themselves.
M: Right!
W: But most of the slave maker ants they could do the work for themselves couldn't they?
M: I guess so, but then there are those Amazon ants. Amazon?
W: Um... The Amazon ants, oh, those were the slave maker ants that are actually depended on the ants they slaved. Now where we start again?
M: Let me see, here it is. The size of their mandible yeah, it was because they have these really long curvy mandibles .
W: Oh, yeah! Those are the jaws.
M: Right! And those mandibles are so big that the Amazon ants can't even get their own food or dig nests for themselves. So they need the slaves to get the food and dig the nests for them.
W: That makes sense! Now could we go back to the part on how they capture the slaves? We were talking before about how some slave maker ants go into other nest and bring back pupae to become slave. But they can also take over a whole colony, right?
M: Yeah. Yeah. The queen ant after she mates, she is carrying her own eggs and what she does is she goes into another colony of another specie. She takes over the colony and those other ants the slaves start working for her and then she lays her eggs.
W: But the colony she is there is already got its own queen, so…
M: Yeah, if she doesn't cooperate, the slave maker ant will kill that queen and then when she has own eggs, they become adults and they become slave maker ants too.
W: And then they go out to rob other ants nest for pupae to bring back and then slave.