![]() ![]() The slave-makers may either be permanent social parasites (thus depending on enslaved ants throughout their whole lives) or facultative slave-makers. The slave-making ants are specialized to parasitize a single species or a group of related species, and they are often close relatives to their hosts, which is typical for social parasites. After emerging in the slave-maker nest, slave workers work as if they were in their own colony, while parasite workers only concentrate on replenishing the labor force from neighboring host nests, a process called slave raiding. Slave-making ants or slaver ants are brood parasites that capture broods of other ant species to increase the worker force of their colony. Queen and brood of the social parasite Polyergus lucidus with Formica archboldi workers
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