5 replies to this topic

[Jadeninja9]

Alright so back in January this year I found a male alate at my school. People on Instagram said it was probably Apheanogaster. I only took one, non-macro image of it since I didn’t have any test tubes to bring it home and get a good picture of it. So speculations are probably as good as I’m going to get.
-Date of Collection: 12:15pm, Jan 16, 2018
-Habitat of collection: Outside concrete area near some recently planted shrubs. I should also mention that my school is surrounded by chaparral.
-Length (from head to gaster): Unknown
-Color: Brown/Black
Pics:
(I can’t get a BBCode link because Imgur isn’t letting me log in on the mobile website so I gotta use the app)

https://imgur.com/a/tKSZI

[Mettcollsuss]

Probably Aphaenogaster. It does look somewhat Attine, though.

[LC3]

I'm assuming this is referring to the same Aphaenogaster male alate from your Prenolepis journal post. Anyways I'm fairly certain that none of the fungus farming ants fly during January, nor do Aphaenogaster. Might be a Veromessor species, since they do fly during January.

Edited by LC3, February 10 2018 - 11:58 PM.

[Jadeninja9]

Yeah, this is the one. One of my friends was sure it was Aphaenogaster. On this day it was the warmest it had been. Brian L. Fisher also had told me that Bay Area ant behavior is quite different than ants of other regions, so we have different nuptial flight schedules than normal. And according to another friend who has been anting longer than I have, says that "Aphaenogaster fly whenever it gets warm here." Heres a quote from Brian Fisher from an email he sent me: "Unlike in more cooler regions, ants do not hibernate in the Bay area but life cycles such a reproduction (when winged queens and males are produced) and foraging patterns are determined by the weather and climate." Gotta listen to the man himself lol. So based on this information, have you changed your thoughts on what the male is?

[LC3]

Interesting info. In that case I think it's Aphaenogaster occidentalis.

[Jadeninja9]

Interesting info. In that case I think it's Aphaenogaster occidentalis.

Wow, that's exactly what my other friend said.