8 replies to this topic

[Mdrogun]

She was caught in Naperville, IL on 7/24/16 using a Blacklight. She is 1/4 of an inch (this is pretty inacurate it was really hard to measure her),blackish-brown and quite skinny.

 

I had a hard time uploading my picture to formiculture to here is a video:

https://youtu.be/XdY4hLsYG9Q

Edited by Mdrogun, July 24 2016 - 6:32 PM.

[Saftron]

From the video I confidently say Temnothorax Americanus.

[Mdrogun]

From the video I confidently say Temnothorax Americanus

Batspiderfish's answer seems to be the correct one.

Edited by Mdrogun, July 24 2016 - 7:50 PM.

[Batspiderfish]

Likely Hypoponera opacior, based on the time of year; Ponera pennsylvanica, the other option, flies in the fall.

 

The two genera can be differentiated by details on the underneath of the petiole:

http://mississippien...enera.key.htm#5

Edited by Batspiderfish, July 24 2016 - 7:49 PM.

[Mdrogun]

Likely Hypoponera opacior, based on the time of year. Ponera pennsylvanica flies in the fall.

 

The two genera can be differentiated by details on the underneath of the petiole:

http://mississippien...enera.key.htm#5

Man, how are you so good at this?

[Batspiderfish]

Haha. I am still recovering from calling a certain Pogonomyrmex alate a wasp, but thank you!

We don't have a lot of ponerines this far north and the subfamily is very distinct.

[Batspiderfish]

North American ponerines are tricky semiclaustral ants to raise, so try to see what other people have done with them. I've only come close to founding a Ponera colony once, so far, by introducing a worker and having filled their test tube with dirt. Sadly, the first brood were males. 

 

To me, Ponera seemed so bad at fighting that I figured I might be able to adopt her to a foreign worker. They feuded for about a month before joining up and acting like a colony.

Edited by Batspiderfish, July 24 2016 - 8:35 PM.

[Mdrogun]

North American ponerines are tricky semiclaustral ants to raise, so try to see what other people have done with them. I've only come close to founding a Ponera colony once, so far, by introducing a worker and having filled their test tube with dirt. Sadly, the first brood were males. 

 

To me, Ponera seemed so bad at fighting that I figured I might be able to adopt her to a foreign worker. They feuded for about a month before joining up and acting like a colony.

I would expect them to be good at fighting with their nimble bodies and more pronounced mandibles. I had a Stigmatomma queen once. Like a complete idiot, right after she laid eggs I decided to warm her up to help speed up growth but I accidentally cooked her. 

[Batspiderfish]

Yikes! It's good that you got her to the egg-laying stage. People have huge difficulty founding colonies of this genus without offering the queens helper workers or brood, which is why I did the same with my vaguely similar Ponera.

 

It might not be that they are bad at fighting, but that they seemingly aren't physically or behaviorally adapted to fight other ants.

Stigmatomma is in a different subfamily, in case anybody didn't know -- Amblyoponinae, while Ponera is in Ponerinae.

Edited by Batspiderfish, July 25 2016 - 6:01 AM.