host. Solenopsis may sometimes nest in Myrmecia colonies, as a single colony was found to have three or four Solenopsis nests inside. Lagria beetles and rove beetles in the genus Heterothops dwell inside colonies and skinks and frogs have also been found living unmolested within Myrmecia nests. Metacrinia nichollsi, for example, has been reported living inside M. regularis colonies. Life cycle Like other ants, Myrmecia ants begin as an egg. If the egg is fertilised, the ant becomes a diploid female; if not, it becomes a haploid male. They develop through complete metamorphosis, meaning that they pass through larval and pupal stages before emerging as adults. During the process of founding a colony, as many as four queens cooperate with each other to find a suitable nesting ground, but after the first generation of workers is born, they fight each other until one queen is left alive. However, occasional colonies are known to have as many as six queens coexisting peacefully in the presence of workers. A queen searches for a suitable nest site to establish her colony, and excavates a small chamber in the soil or under logs and rocks, where she takes care of her young. A queen also hunts for prey instead of staying in her nest, a behaviour known as claustral colony founding. Although queens do provide sufficient amounts of food to feed their larvae, the first workers are "nanitics" (or minims), smaller than the smallest workers encountered in older developed colonies. Several species do not have any worker caste, and solitary queens will raid a colony, kill the residing queen, and take over the colony. The first generation of workers may take a while to fully develop into adults; for example, M. forficata eggs take around 100 days to fully develop, while other species may take up to eight months. Queens lay around eight eggs, but less than half of these eggs develop. Some species, such as M. simillima and M. gulosa, lay their eggs singly on the colony floor, while M. pilosula ants may lay eggs in a clump. These clumps have two to 30 eggs each with no larvae present. Certain Myrmecia species do not lay their eggs singly and form clumps of eggs, instead. The larvae are capable of crawling short distances without the assistance of adult workers, and workers will cover the larvae in dirt to help them spin into a