To make any real progress, you need a large labour force. If you can get this large labour force at relatively little cost, so much the better.
Sometimes individuals of the same species are taken, sometimes of a different species. In either case, pupa are taken and are typically raised by pre-existing slaves to become slaves themselves after emergence.
Darwin's hypothesis was that this set of behaviour arose from territorial competition; if you can steal workers from a competitor and consume it, it's a double win, a small amount of calories for your colony at a cost to your competitor.
If some of these pupa are overlooked and develop into adult ants, they would assimilate into the colony and be none the wiser, this brings even more benefit, free workers.
This behaviour would be selected for, or there would be no evolutionary pressure to select against, so would become more prevalent.
Tags: Evolution | Behaviour | Charles Dawin | Slavemaker
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