24 replies to this topic

[BrittonLS]

That is a seriously hairy ant!

 

Formacinae and Myrmicinae are both subfamilies of the Formicidae family. All ants are members of the Formicidae family, but can also be split up into subfamilies before their genus. Myrmicinae are more likely to have stingers and have 2 nodes. Formicidae on the other hand are more likely to be stingless and usually spray formic acid rather than stinging, they also only have a one node petiole.

 

https://en.wikipedia...wiki/Formicinae

 

https://en.wikipedia...wiki/Myrmicinae

 

And to actually answer the question you asked. Lasius belongs to the subfamily Formicinae. So it is a type of Formicinae in the same way that Lasius latipes is a member of the Lasius genus. And the same for Solenopsis within the Myrmicinae subfamily.

 

Oh gosh I broke the italics button.

Edited by BrittonLS, August 4 2015 - 6:14 PM.

[LC3]

Sorry if I wasn't clear.

Basically there are sub families of ants, 4 main/most diverse are; Formacinae,Myrmicinae,Dolichoderinae and Ponerinae.

Lasius are in the Formacine sub-family 

while Solenopsis are in the Myrmicinae sub-family.

The major difference between Formacine ants and Myrmicine are Formacine ants have one node (petiole) between the thorax and gaster while Myrmicinae have two (petiole + post-petiole). Some Myrmicinae ants (Or the majority) have stings like Solenopsis,Monomorium,Some species of Myrmica and even Tetramorium may have stings. Formacine ants have a different defense some ants (Formica,Camponotus and a few more,although Lasius can't shoot acid.) can shoot formic acid or spray a cloud of formic acid.Not to mention all Formacines make cocoons while Myrmicinea don't .(If you ask me it's a bit stronger than vinegar, not enough to melt you skin though haha)  

If your wondering about the other major sub-families heres a quick summary:

Dolichodrine ants look a lot like Formacines and can also shoot formic acid, the only major way to tell is that they have a slit they shout acid from while Formacine have a hole/pore.

Ponerine ants include the nasty stinging types. You can tell because their gaster is comprised of two segments and they have a very well developed stinger. They have one node.

[Jonathan21700]

Not all Formicine ants spray acid. Usually the European Formica in the rufa group actually spray the acid. Most of them just (idk what's the term) just release a drop in the thing they are attacking. The Formicinae subfamily contains  some of the most evolved ants. The Ponerinae, Leptanillinae, Martialinae, etc . subfamilies contain some of the first lineages of ants.

[Works4TheGood]

For reasons that I can only guess at, I had lost ALL of my L. latipes in their test tube setups. I think they were exposed to too much heat, the cotton was not deep enough in the water, and too add to the stress, they didn't have a host. This was just too much for them.

The good news is that I had been working on an incubator setup to keep the temp at 82 degrees, I had also caught a boatload of what I believe are Lasius cocoons just yesterday, and today I caught 4 more L. latipes to replace the ones I'd lost. I immediately placed them in test tube setups today with the cacoons, and placed them all in the incubator. We'll see in about 2 weeks how things are going. My guess is that they'll all die.

-Dan

[Works4TheGood]

I am very confident that my 2nd queen is Lasius murphyi.

Edited by Works4TheGood, August 17 2015 - 8:23 PM.