Two black beauties

[Gardener]

hahaha... I'm psyched because I caught two ants today that I don't think I've seen before. They are measuring in at 1 cm and are full of life

I'm pretty sure these are female this time! What do you think?

https://imgur.com/a/CZsGRu0

[SYUTEO]

Yep! Definitely queens, seems to be Formica.

[Gardener]

Syuteo,

I can't help that it's impressive you are able to ID ants from halfway across the world, so thank you.

[SYUTEO]

Identifying ants from other countries is actually not that difficult, you just need to know what to look out for (size, color, location, characteristics, behavior etc), most Formica queens have a disc shaped petiole that's very close to their gasters, run fast and more common species has a golden hue on their thorax and gaster.

[Gardener]

It sounds like you have a lot of experience looking at ants.

I have this book for New England ant identification, and it relies on a key matrix of shape of various parts to identify. The book states you need a dissecting microscope to identify species, and that without one we should be able to get to genus. I am thinking about getting a dissecting microscope and collecting worker ants from the wild for identification.

I think that until I have more experience, I have to get into it this way. And of course I'm having a great time...