Social insects are emerging models for studying aging and the longevity/fecundity trade-off. Research on the demography of colonies and populations are hampered by the lack of reliable age markers. Here we investigate the suitability of cuticular pigmentation and pteridine fluorescence for age grading individuals of the clonal ant Platythyrea punctata. We found that both traits varied with age. Cuticular color darkened with individual's age until 25-30 days after hatching. For pteridine fluorescence, we found that P. punctata workers show a decrease in head pteridine levels over time until 70-80 days of age. Together with other markers, such as age-based behavior, cuticular coloration and pteridine fluorescence may help to estimate the age structure of colonies.

中文翻译：

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克隆蚂蚁中表皮颜色和蝶啶水平的年龄依赖性变化。

社会昆虫是研究衰老和寿命/生殖力权衡的新兴模型。缺乏可靠的年龄标记阻碍了对殖民地和人口人口统计的研究。在这里，我们调查表皮色素沉着和蝶啶荧光对于克隆蚂蚁Platythyrea punctata的年龄分级个体的适用性。我们发现这两个特征都随着年龄的变化而变化。卵的颜色会随着年龄的增长而变暗，直到孵化后25-30天。对于蝶啶荧光，我们发现P. punctata工人在70-80日龄之前随着时间的推移显示头部蝶啶水平降低。与其他标记（例如基于年龄的行为，表皮着色和蝶啶荧光）一起，可以帮助估计菌落的年龄结构。