Are my ants normal sized?

[Antswithlenn]

So I caught a queen that is the size of my pinky nail, and her worker are the size of her butt. Is this small, or is this a normal size, also is lasius the same size? And are the workers the same size?

[Antswithlenn]

Okay, I answered my own question, so my queen is very normal for Tetramorium, and the workers are basically normal too, the reason I say this is because workers get bigger as more generations pass, this is because of the colony’s effectiveness for food, I found this out from an article that I will leave a link to. But anyway, I figured out that she was Tetramorium from pictures online, then I proceeded to lookup the length of Tetramorium workers, it turns out that they are supposed to be 3 mm, and I put them to a ruler, and they are. The reason they look so small is because your brain has a way of over doing your pre conception of size, so if you see a small ant, and you think wow that’s small, you will see comparable things and think the ants are smaller, this has a part to do with macro zoom lenses, if you have no context, you think they whatever size is displayed within reason. So in conclusion, any new ant keepers, if you feel your ants are very small, wait a couple generations, then just except that if you have identified the ants correctly, that is the size they are. So ya, if you are really disappointed in the ants size, don’t be, you were falsely lead to believe the size of your species, but to get a good look, if your ants really means something, spend 20-30 dollars to get a macro phone attachment, trust me, you will enjoy the subtleties much more, btw enhanced zoom lenses is the reason ant youtubers with small ants can notice subtle things.

https://www.antkeepers.com/facts/ant-colony/lifecycle-ant-colony/

The link above is the article, they also have a great shop with a bunch of supplies.