Unusual Queen Ant Caught in Georgia, U.S.A., on June 2019

Help with identifying the species your ants

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malant19
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Aug 23, 2019 9:58 pm
Location: Georgia, US

Unusual Queen Ant Caught in Georgia, U.S.A., on June 2019

Post: # 63214Post malant19
Tue Aug 27, 2019 2:22 am

Hello,

I've signed into this forum as a last resort to getting this ant species identified. I say it's "unusual," because out of the 20+ years for which I've lived in the specified geographic location, I've never seen any other ant species native to my home with this queen's color pattern of black head, brown thorax, and black abdomen. (Maybe I just never noticed.) I'm not claiming to have discovered a new species; it's just different from the ones I see everyday in my backyard: fire ant, red carpenter ant, some small dark-grey species, and some tiny black species. I thus had tremendous difficulty identifying the species myself. Even after searching "ants of Georgia", "ants of Southeastern United States", and "ants of North America", most of what I found were a bunch of exterminator websites listing common species that don't seem to definitively match this queen or its workers. I could use some help.

Date the queen was caught: June 10, 2019*
Geographic location: Hephzibah, Georgia; United States
Place on which it was found: my bathroom floor (crawling in the open)
Time it was caught: 9:55 P.M., Eastern U.S. Time*
Size of the queen: ~4mm
Size of the workers: ~2mm
*(I right-clicked the image I took of the caught queen to see "Date taken" under the Properties tab.)

The following photos were taken using my Samsung Galaxy S7 phone (on Android 8.0.0):

This photo is quite blurry, but at least it shows the queen's body shape from the top. (taken on July 24, 2019)
Image

After reading some of the posting rules, I took closer, slightly clearer, better-lit photos of the ants. (taken on August 23, 2019)
When my Hybrid Nest kit arrives in the mail, I'll get them to move from this glass tube to a fresher test tube.
Image
Image
Image

I have a personal compound light microscope by AmScope, so I decided to take photos of a sacrificed worker through it. [taken at 100x magnification (4x objective + 25x eyepiece) and on August 23, 2019]
Image
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Hawkeye
Posts: 1557
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2019 4:38 pm
Location: Almelo

Re: Unusual Queen Ant Caught in Georgia, U.S.A., on June 2019

Post: # 63251Post Hawkeye
Wed Aug 28, 2019 8:18 am

If you type United States in the search bar of antwiki.org you'll get the list of ants you are after

sartwell90
Posts: 94
Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2019 2:46 pm
Location: South East Michigan

Re: Unusual Queen Ant Caught in Georgia, U.S.A., on June 2019

Post: # 63252Post sartwell90
Wed Aug 28, 2019 8:49 am

At a glance it looks like Formica, but - thanks to your close-ups I can tell the petiole us not defined enough. So maybe Lasius, once again the close-ups show the thorax is doesn't have the rather significant 'second hump' as you would find on Lasius.

Georgia, diminutive single petiole, minute concavity mid thorax - I believe sir you may have a Nylanderia spp., Prenolepis is a possibility too, but the thoracic shape seems to match Nylanderia better.

Wonderful find!
Check out my colonies! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDze5idJomnpRCpvd3QoAFA
Or, if you would rather read about them check here - https://forum.AntsCanada.com/viewtopic.php?p=60680#p60680

malant19
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Aug 23, 2019 9:58 pm
Location: Georgia, US

Re: Unusual Queen Ant Caught in Georgia, U.S.A., on June 2019

Post: # 63339Post malant19
Thu Aug 29, 2019 5:29 pm

Hawkeye wrote:
Wed Aug 28, 2019 8:18 am
If you type United States in the search bar of antwiki.org you'll get the list of ants you are after
Wow! Why didn't I use this site sooner? I could've used it to dwindle down to possibilities based on unique anatomical features of each taxon.

malant19
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Aug 23, 2019 9:58 pm
Location: Georgia, US

Re: Unusual Queen Ant Caught in Georgia, U.S.A., on June 2019

Post: # 63340Post malant19
Thu Aug 29, 2019 5:44 pm

sartwell90 wrote:
Wed Aug 28, 2019 8:49 am
At a glance it looks like Formica, but - thanks to your close-ups I can tell the petiole us not defined enough. So maybe Lasius, once again the close-ups show the thorax is doesn't have the rather significant 'second hump' as you would find on Lasius.

Georgia, diminutive single petiole, minute concavity mid thorax - I believe sir you may have a Nylanderia spp., Prenolepis is a possibility too, but the thoracic shape seems to match Nylanderia better.

Wonderful find!
Thanks. Based on my Google image search for Nylanderia, it seems that you're correct. I'm thinking N. vividula or N. terricola. All in all, I'm satisfied.

AntsKL
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2020 11:30 pm
Location: Malaysia
Contact:

Re: Unusual Queen Ant Caught in Georgia, U.S.A., on June 2019

Post: # 68954Post AntsKL
Wed Apr 15, 2020 1:43 am

You’re right, it’s a Nylanderia sp. as I have a colony of them too :P :lol: :roll:
Antlove4ever and sub to my channel

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