ABSTRACT
All ants are highly eusocial, which means individuals care for the young, there are castes, and there is an overlap of at least two generations in which workers assist their mother in rearing sisters and brothers. Ants have developed a formidable array of active and /or passive semiochemical and non-chemical defenses. Knowledge of nestmate recognition is essential for a comprehensive understanding of both ant defenses and the organisms that have broken the recognition code and are able to infiltrate ant colonies and exploit colony resources. The simplest ant colony situation is one where there is a single queen, inseminated by a single male, the colony resides in a single nest and workers from each colony defend a territory. In all ant species nestmate recognition discriminators and the neural template are derived to some extent from all possible sources -- the environment, the individual, class of worker, or queen from within the colony, or collectively from all individuals in a colony.
