Together with his doctoral student, Christoph von Beeren, Witte has now shown that silverfish that form close associations with ants do not make the odor compounds themselves. Instead, they steal them directly from their hosts, in this case an Asian species of army ant. Simply by rubbing itself against the surface cuticle of colony members, the silverfish picks up the characteristic mixture of chemicals that identifies the bearer as an inhabitant. This enables the intruder to successfully infiltrate and become socially integrated into the nest.
