Ant identification from Texas

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Alex157
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Apr 01, 2018 10:13 am
Location: Dallas TX

Ant identification from Texas

Post: # 34945Post Alex157
Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:40 pm

Hello members,
I live in the Dallas area, and have been unable to locate any queens here other than fire ant queens which are too numerous to count about this time of the year. I caught one of those just for practice of keeping a queen in a test tube.
About a week ago my sons and I were at the local park, and we noticed some ant activity in the middle of a large grassy area- upon closer inspection, there were numerous new hills going on in about a 1 acre area. I had never seen this type of ant here, it is a relatively large yellow colored ant, general form similar to a carpenter ant, and the entrances to their nests were somewhat large- about 1/2" diameter. Since the nests looked very recent from the activity and general amount of earth moved, we decided to dig one out. it seems we were successful getting them in a generally undisturbed single clump, and they are now in a large rubbermade container.
so 2 questions:
1. I believe them to be "citronella" ants by googling yellow ants Texas, looks to be a good match. I will try to send a picture of the ants here for positive ID, but says that the board attach quota has been reached? I shrunk them down as far as I could, 210kb and 117 kb hard to get a good picture, they don't like to stay still, they are about 1/4"long. If they are indeed Citronella ants, I saw that this type of ant feeds (exclusively?) on honedew produced by subterranean farming of root sicking aphids. if this is the case, it seems like it would be very difficult to keep a setup like that going? would need the ants, the aphids, and living plants for the aphids.

2. if it is possible to work keeping them out, is there a method for separation the ants from their current environment (4" deep soil in the rubbermade tote? they have sort of re-created their nest in there, didn't want to overly disturb them , but I have never seen their queen, so not absolutely certain that we got her.

AntsDakota
Posts: 1283
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 4:22 pm
Location: South Dakota

Re: Ant identification from Texas

Post: # 35273Post AntsDakota
Sat Apr 21, 2018 8:10 pm

Alex157 wrote:
Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:40 pm
Hello members,
I live in the Dallas area, and have been unable to locate any queens here other than fire ant queens which are too numerous to count about this time of the year. I caught one of those just for practice of keeping a queen in a test tube.
About a week ago my sons and I were at the local park, and we noticed some ant activity in the middle of a large grassy area- upon closer inspection, there were numerous new hills going on in about a 1 acre area. I had never seen this type of ant here, it is a relatively large yellow colored ant, general form similar to a carpenter ant, and the entrances to their nests were somewhat large- about 1/2" diameter. Since the nests looked very recent from the activity and general amount of earth moved, we decided to dig one out. it seems we were successful getting them in a generally undisturbed single clump, and they are now in a large rubbermade container.
so 2 questions:
1. I believe them to be "citronella" ants by googling yellow ants Texas, looks to be a good match. I will try to send a picture of the ants here for positive ID, but says that the board attach quota has been reached? I shrunk them down as far as I could, 210kb and 117 kb hard to get a good picture, they don't like to stay still, they are about 1/4"long. If they are indeed Citronella ants, I saw that this type of ant feeds (exclusively?) on honedew produced by subterranean farming of root sicking aphids. if this is the case, it seems like it would be very difficult to keep a setup like that going? would need the ants, the aphids, and living plants for the aphids.

2. if it is possible to work keeping them out, is there a method for separation the ants from their current environment (4" deep soil in the rubbermade tote? they have sort of re-created their nest in there, didn't want to overly disturb them , but I have never seen their queen, so not absolutely certain that we got her.
Make an account on imgur.com and post the exact address to your photo.
"God made every kind of wild beasts and every kind of livestock and every kind of creeping things;" (including ants) "and God saw that it was good." Genesis 1:25

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