Wisconsin ID please!

[AntMomo]

Hello again guys! So today I was catching P. imparis queens in my yard, when I saw something strange happening.



This queen had her butt sticking right out of a colony entrance, and the other ants around her were freaking out. I'm not sure if they were trying to help her in, or kick her out! Eventually she backed out, and ran off away from the entrance. I still couldn't be sure if she was their queen or not, but I thought it was strange how they were acting and thought perhaps she was an intruder, so I scooped her up.





Caught her today (4/15/2017), and she is about 8-9 mm long. These are the best images I could get of her. IDing would be helpful! Especially want to know if she belonged to that colony, if she was an invading queen, or if she's even a queen at all! If she DID belong to that colony, then I will go back and grab up as many of her workers as I can. (or just put her back haha) Thanks for the help!

[Martialis]

That was an infiltration of a nest. She's a Lasius temporary parasite. My best guess is something from the Acanthomyops subgenus. That's actually a very rare sight. Nice find!

[AntMomo]

ooh that's awesome! Thank you!

[Batspiderfish]

She's definitely not Lasius. This may be a Formica social parasite, though. They steal brood from a host colony and raise them as their own. You can just give her some Formica pupae and she can take care of the rest. We would need more photographs (with better lighting and from more angles) to get an identity for her.

[Batspiderfish]

Also, try to get an image of the front of her head, above the mandibles, so that we can determine if she is in the Sanguinea species group.