Ok my turn to ask!

Help with identifying the species your ants

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Ok my turn to ask!

Post: # 2469Post MadVampy
Mon Aug 17, 2015 8:02 pm

Ok so it's my turn to ask! So I was in the house and saw a small trail of the same black ants that attacked and more or less killed off my Solenopsis colony (the queen finally died because the last few of the workers I had miss handled her while moving into the Hybrid nest), I move stuff until I saw them go under a envelope and I lifted it only to find about 20-30 works and A QUEEN! There was in fact 2 of them and I was fast enough to catch her and some of the workers. I put them in the out world of the hybrid nest.

Go figure the same species that destroyed my Solenopsis I ended up catching a queen of. LOL My luck has always been weird! Now maybe with your help you can tell me what species this is?

Caught in my house which is located in Tuscaloosa Alabama, Date Today
Here are some pics I took with my pad and hopefully you can tell me?

Sorry My flashlight was dying, if they are not bright enough let me know and I'll try some more

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Re: Ok my turn to ask!

Post: # 2470Post larynx
Mon Aug 17, 2015 8:20 pm

how big are they?
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Re: Ok my turn to ask!

Post: # 2472Post MadVampy
Mon Aug 17, 2015 8:32 pm

The Queens maybe 1/4" maybe a hair over. Workers are about an 1/8". What I would call the common little black ant. They get every where and into everything. Hell they even squeezed thru the very fine mesh I had for my fire ants air holes (that's how they over ran the fire ant colony). :(
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Re: Ok my turn to ask!

Post: # 2473Post larynx
Mon Aug 17, 2015 8:48 pm

im thinking.... monomorium sp. as these look like the monomorium sp. i have. im not sure, though. but those are the ones that escaped my mesh cover as well. i had to put mine back in a test tube until i get their tiny formicarium done.
http://forum.AntsCanada.com/download/file.php?id=5
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Re: Ok my turn to ask!

Post: # 2477Post MadVampy
Mon Aug 17, 2015 9:17 pm

These are more brownish.
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Gregory2455

Re: Ok my turn to ask!

Post: # 2479Post Gregory2455
Mon Aug 17, 2015 10:13 pm

These appear to be Linepithema humile, the Argentine ant. Make sure the queens have lots of workers to help them out as, like Monomorium, the queens will die without about 100 workers constantly helping them.

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Re: Ok my turn to ask!

Post: # 2483Post larynx
Tue Aug 18, 2015 12:06 am

Gregory2455 wrote: Make sure the queens have lots of workers to help them out as, like Monomorium, the queens will die without about 100 workers constantly helping them.
i second that. my monomorium queens struggled pretty hard untill they had well over 75 workers. now they have about 150, and they are going strong.
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Vegetable

Re: Ok my turn to ask!

Post: # 2525Post Vegetable
Tue Aug 18, 2015 1:57 pm

They are not Monomorium sp. and, in fact, they do not belong to the subfamily of Myrmecinae at all. You can distinguish it from their petiolus. I have none experience of American ants but it looks like Tapinoma to me. :) Please correct me if I'm wrong.

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Re: Ok my turn to ask!

Post: # 2534Post larynx
Tue Aug 18, 2015 2:39 pm

Myrmicinae*
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Re: Ok my turn to ask!

Post: # 2535Post larynx
Tue Aug 18, 2015 2:51 pm

Gregory2455 wrote:These appear to be Linepithema humile, the Argentine ant. Make sure the queens have lots of workers to help them out as, like Monomorium, the queens will die without about 100 workers constantly helping them.
gregory is usually pretty spot on with american sp. but i have no clue.(heck, i thought they where monomorium minimum. lol
i do know that Linepithema are a lot more common here in the southern US, than Tapinoma though. :D
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