On the Larval Morphology of some Messor Ants
Description
This dataset contains raw images of fixed ant larval specimens of the species Messor barbarus and Messor himalayanus, collected from different localities in temperate countries. - Nests of Messor himalayanus (Forel, 1902) (n=5 nests with different development stages, including specimens from all larval stages) were collected from underneath stones around the village of Wayil (34.27°N, 74.80°E; 1678 m above sea level) in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India. The nests were manually inspected to collect any larvae into 70% alcohol. - Larvae of M. barbarus were obtained from lab-reared nests originally collected from Sorbas, Spain (37.50°N, 2.07°W) which had been held in the laboratory for about 10 years; these colonies were queenright, and not producing alates, meaning all the photographed larvae were from female workers. The larvae of M. barbarus observed for this study were all mature larvae (i.e. the last instar, likely a 3rd instar).
Files
Steps to reproduce
SEM specimens - The selected specimens were dehydrated through sequential dipping in acetone solutions of increasing concentrations until 100%, towards critical point drying in a K850 critical point dryer (Quorum Technologies Ltd). The critical-point dried specimens were then attached onto aluminum stubs using a piece of double-faced conductive adhesive tape, and placed inside a Quorum Q150R ES Plus sputter coater for gold-coating. The mounted processed specimens were inspected under a Zeiss Gemini 1 Sigma 500 scanning electron microscope at 20 KV/EHT, from which digital images at high magnification were obtained. Light microscopy - Additional representative larval specimens of each instar (n=15–20) were immersed in KOH 10% aqueous solution in glass tubes and heated for 15 min on a candle light for tissues diaphanisaton, and finally transferred individually into a small droplet of glycerin, mounted between two microscope slides, to be observed under a RXLr5-50 compound light microscope. Digital pictures of different body parts were obtained under the compound microscope, from which various measurements were taken using the software ProgRes CapturePro v2.8.8.1 and ImageJ bundled with 64-bit Java 8 software.
Institutions
- Universidade Estadual de GoiasGO, Anapolis