This potential queen was captured at around 7 PM on the titular date walking across my front sidewalk. I live pretty much in the middle of nowhere; the titular town/city is the closest civilized area, about ten miles away. The local environment is heavily forested. It had just finished raining when I found her.
As all I have is a crappy cellphone camera, here's the details that might not be clear from the picture:
- She's around 6/16ths of an inch (~9 mm) in length.
- She's reddish in overall coloration, with no major variation.
- Her petiole is rather thick, and appears to have one segment.
- She seems unable to climb the sides of the glass test tube I'm keeping her in.
- She also seems very determined to try to escape the test tube. This makes me think she might be a worker rather than a queen; the last time I caught an ant this eager to escape, it turned out to be a worker.
Assuming she is a queen, my current guess is that she's a parasitic Lasius queen. I'd like to make sure, however.
