Abstract: Ivan K. Iakovlev Ivan K. Iakovlev, Institute of Systematics and Ecology of Animals, Siberian Branch Russian Academy of Sciences, Frunze Str. 11, 630091 Novosibirsk, Russia. E-mail: smile@gorodok.net Myrmecol. News 10: 108 Red wood ants of the Formica rufa Linnaeus, 1761 group compete with carabid predatory ground beetles and attack them on their foraging territory. Carabids use a variety of behavioural tactics in order to avoid conflict with ants. The ant-beetle interactions are based on the mutual detection of the competitor's searching images by a set of key stimuli such as body symmetry, the presence of legs and antennae, the speed of movements, and the smell and coloration of the beetles (Reznikova & Dorosheva 2004). In order to investigate the development of aggressive behaviour in these ants, the reactions of two groups of ants to living beetles and four imitative models with various searching images features were compared experimentally. Naïve ants were…