The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

I'm brand new to the Ant keeping. But oh man! Can i just tell you how incredible it is learning so much about ants? all these pictures/videos? And following along with everyone else's progress? Serious. Its been a blast so far!

Now to the question... I need help to ID a queen. I didn't catch this one. She literally landed in my lap. I was on break outside staring at some pavement ants when she fell on my leg. Bottled her up, finished my shift and took her home. When I went to move her into a test tube, I noticed she had ripped her wings off during the drive home.

She was caught on 8/31/17 in Orem, UT, USA. My best guess is Lasius niger but I'm still only about a month into this hobby so I'm not positive. She's roughly 10mm in length. Her color and the way light reflects off her reminds me a lot of smooth amber. And she's pretty damn fast...

Just got a new macro lens off Amazon for my S8+. Shot these in UHD!

Lasius cf. flavus. L. crypticus (a relative of Lasius alienus) is an unlikely second possibility.

I dont think that its Lasius Flavus. They have more orange legs.

af4545 wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 13, 2017 3:56 pm

I dont think that its Lasius Flavus. They have more orange legs.

How orange? Here's a picture under different lighting.

Looks like we'll have to wait and see, then.

Here are some confirmed lasius flavus queens.
https://i.imgur.com/U2t9N17.jpg

Will it be easier to identify her when she has workers?

I caught another one on September 5th in the same spot with her wings already off that appears to be the same species. I cant get pictures of her though because I made a small home for her.

When I went to bottle her up I hit her thorax with the top of the bottle... She seemed pretty hurt because it appeared as if her hind legs had little function (she had a hard time turning herself back up right everytime she fell when climbing in the water bottle). Next day she seemed to be doing fine but seemed to go wild when i moved the bottle. So I made small formicarium for her with dirt to dig into.

The diameter of the container is about 4(100mm).
Half of the bottom is dirt.
The water tube is mounted virtically and is suspended a few millimeters above the dirt as not to continuously seep water into it but provide moisture and low enough for a worker to stand and reach it.
The second tube has 2 notches cut into it so they can access food when i drop it doen the tube.


As soon as I put her in, she got to digging. In this picture you can see the hole she dug and one of the notches in the tube. The dirt was compressed back but in just an hour, she already dug quite a lot out.


This shows how high the water tube is hanging just above the dirt (the end of it was touched to the dirt to collect a small layer over the cotton). As well, the tunnel in the back she cleared.


She has since covered the opening and burrying herself in. So I assume she is a claustral species? (am I using that term correctly?)

Right, the only Lasius which are not claustral are the social parasites.

And if she was a social parasite I don't think that she would've settle like that...