The separation of the wood ant sibling species Formica rufa and F. polyctera has been questioned recently on partly morphological grounds. We show difference in their attacks on ten alien, mainly sympatric, ant species. F. rufa significantly more often inflicted pure proximal in proportion to distal lesions than F. polyctena. They did not significantly differ in total number, laterality, or anterior/posterior position of inflicted lesions and did not injure some victim species significantly more proximally than others. Serviformica and Raptiformica species inflicted mainly distal lesions in contrast to the mainly proximally attacking Coptoformica and F. truncorum of the wood ant subgenus (Formica s.s.). Formica exsecta amputated significantly more heads relative to other body parts than eight other Formica species when all fought individually with ten ant species. F. exsecta decapitated Formica species significantly more often than non -Formica species (enemy specification) although this discrimination was not significantly stronger than in the eight other amputating Formica species (enemy specification "in the strict sense" was not demonstrated). Similar interspecific decapitations reported from natural F. exsecta colonies support the relevancy of one-on-one combats in the laboratory to the natural situation. Phylogenetic position and degree of polygyny of Formica species were not clearly correlated with interspecific proximal-attack propensity.
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