Synthetic Analogs of the Trail Pheromone of the Leaf-Cutting Ant, A tta

nvestigations of the town ant, Atra texnnu (Buckley), revealed the structures of its alarm pheromones (Moser et ul., 1968) and one of its trail-following pheromones (Tumlinson el n/., 1971 ; Wood er a/., 1970). This ant is a pest of pine plantations and farm crops (Moser, 1962); hence chemicals which control its social behavior are of great concern. We have prepared a number of analogs of the trailfollowing pheromone, methyl 4-methylpyrrole-2-carboxylate (V), and have examined their biological activities. Furthermore, considerable interest exists in the mechanisms of insect olfaction (Schneider, 1971). Recent exciting work (Amoore er al., 1969; Blum et al., 1971 ; Tai er a/., 1971) has stressed the importance of conformational analysis in divining structure-activity relationships. The fairly rigid structure of V and its analogs greatly reduces the number of conformations with which one must contend. This should make arguments based on conformation somewhat more binding than those which have been applied recently to alarm (Amoore et a/., 1969), sex (Blum et al., 1971), and trail-following pheromones (Tai er ai., 1971).