7 replies to this topic

[Crystals]

Location of collection: Athabasca, Alberta Canada
Date of collection: Aug. 28 (sunny with sparse clouds, 22C)
Habitat of collection: Found on a deck in a town.  Location is mostly boreal forest bordered by some sandy pines, river habitat, muskeg.
Length (from head to gaster): 9mm
Color, hue, pattern and texture:  Gaster is black.  Head and thorax are red on the underside with black on top.  Not as hairy as some Formica species I have seen.  Not really shiny either.

Characteristics: Definitely parasitic in behavior, although the best parasitic mother I have ever seen.  Helped the boosted worker eclose with no problem - better than the non-parasitic Formica...  The calmest Formica I have ever seen, and usually parasitic species are even more skittish.  It actually seems curious about the camera...

 

[Crystals]

I know I have seen similar workers in a sandy location about 8km away from here, but never collected a worker to ID them.  All I can think of is Formica emeryi, but I don't think those are parasitic.  For some reason I can't seem to get antweb to give me a side view of any of the Formica found in Alberta so I am really struggling.  Any ideas?

[Gregory2455]

Are you sure she is parasitic?

[Crystals]

I am very sure she is parasitic.  The longer legs, the heavier build, the bigger mandibles.

If I don't feed her every 24 hours, she starts tugging on the cotton.  Once full she calmly sits with her workers/pupae.

[dspdrew]

AntWeb won't give you a side view?

[dspdrew]

Hey crystal, did you ever find out for sure what this was?

[Crystals]

All I can think of is Fromica emeryi.  The coloring is pretty unique in this location, you occasionally see colonies of this species, but she isn't just an oddly colored queen.  I have seen them before.

I am waiting for a worker to pass away to stick it under the USB microscope.  Then I plan to reserect this thread again.

 

That is the problem with many species, you need the workers to get a 100% positive ID.  Formica and Lasius are terrible in this regard when trying to ID queens.

 

They sure aren't Formica aserva, no where near as aggressive (I had those in the past).

 

This species is quite calm for Formica - even more unusual since she is parasitic - or I assumed she was parasitic, she sure wanted food more than any other parasitic queen I ever had.

[dspdrew]

Oh okay. I wasn't sure if you still had it or not.