9 replies to this topic

[Naturenut1233]

Found 4 queens, at least I am 99% sure they are queens, and 3 appear to be one type (to my untrained and inexperienced eyes) and one appears to be different, but similar. I'll explain. But any help would be great! 

Found in our sandy backyard that is shaded by mixed hardwoods and conifers on a sunny afternoon. Collected 8-29-17. They are all 1/4 an inch or 6 - 7 mm I believe. 
Blackish brown with brown legs, the one seems more black with darker legs than the other three. 3 of them are more slim and more pointed gasters. The one has a fatter and blunter gaster.  I have attempted to label the queens A - D. You can see A is much fatter and wider. Maybe she's the same thing as she was found in the same area. She just may have better fat reserves? To me the other three look more wasp like however. My camera really isn't meant for such tiny photography so it's impossible to get pics of the face, etc. Just help getting it down to the general family would be nice if possible.... I can try to look at them with a magnifying glass and answer questions if needed. Thank you so much.

 

Top one is A, next is B, than C and the winged one on the bottom is D.

 

A

 

AB&C

 

A

 

A

 

B

 

B

 

C

 

C

 

C

 

D

 

D

 

D

 

D

 

A

 

A&C

Edited by Naturenut1233, August 31 2017 - 8:09 AM.

[Naturenut1233]

Kind of thinking the winged one might be a drone but what do you think? 

[FeedTheAnts]

No, the winged one is a queen. Looks like Lasius, but I'm bad at this, so...

[AntsMaryland]

Lasius Alienus?

[VoidElecent]

'A' looks like Lasius in the niger group.

'B' & 'C' look like Lasius in the umbratus group. 'D' could also be L. umbratus but we'd need some better pictures, preferably from a side angle.

[Naturenut1233]

Side pics I can do but probably won't be any bigger.

[Naturenut1233]

So should I assume they are parasitic and if so would giving them a few pupae work to help start their colonies? I will try to get more pictures today for better identification and I have a magnifying glass I might be able to use to get close ups.... maybe. I can try.

[Naturenut1233]

Ok, got some more pics of the winged queen. Not sure how to hold an ant with tweezers and figure they normally take off their wings so gently held it by the wings to get side shots without the wings in they way..... Didn't hurt the ant but probably doing it wrong... idk..... Don't dare try the other ants because I don't want cause any harm to legs or bodies and photographing through the tubing just isn't as clear. This one ant has a noticeable spike between the abdomen and the thorax. You can see it in the photo. Tried to get a shot of the face as well. Wish I had incredible zoom but when I zoom in on macro it just gets blurry.... So here is the one queen. Any suggestions on her care would be great too, such as is she claustral, do I feed her, is she parasitic, if so what is the best approach. FYI the tweezers I was using were such that if I squeeze them they loosen their grip on her and I kept them only tight enough that she couldn't take off. Her wings were a little moist so she was more or less sticking to the tweezers. Thanks. 
 

Album: Unidentified Lasius queen collected 8-29-17

5 images

0 comments

[Naturenut1233]

Oh and she's exactly 7 mm from the tip of her mandibles to the tip of her gaster. Does not count antennae. Am I suppose to measure those? 

[Naturenut1233]

Ok, so an update on queen A is that she has a nice cluster of eggs. Not know if she is fully claustral or not I put some honey water in there for her and her gaster is huge now. At least half again as long as it was and transparent between the sections. I swear she looks like a brachymyrmex to my untrained eyes but believe she is to big to be that? 6mm before she ate so much. Lots of eggs all bunched up and she's taking good care of them. The other three queens appear to have no interest in eggs at this point and I'm thinking they may be parasitic queens?