Figure 1

Allometric relations are illustrated by pictures and graphs. (a) Four neuters of the ant Pheidole instabilis reproduced from Figure 36 of Huxley's Problems of Relative Growth [1]. The size of the head is clearly relatively larger for the larger ants, an example of an allometric relationship. The line drawing between the two smallest ants shows the outlines of the four ant heads superimposed, after being scaled in the x and y directions to be the same size. (b) A double logarithmic plot of head length (circles) and head width (squares) as a function of abdomen length (arbitrary units) for the four ants in (a). (c) Idealized ants with elliptical heads illustrate an allometric relationship between heads and bodies.