The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

Hey guys I recently caught a bunch of black ant at my farm on the mid north coast of NSW, Australia and a singular queen in the bush behind my house in the Lake Macquarie region and was hoping to have any ant taxonomists help me identify them properly.

The black ants I found look to me like Iridomyrmex bicknelli but I need confirmation on this they are approx 6-8mm as some are bigger than others. I caught them during their nuptial flight in the morning of 29/10/16 the workers seem to be aggressive as they kept biting me wherever I walked compared to the Aphaenogaster longiceps I also caught.Pictures: http://imgur.com/a/6NGiW

The 2nd queen up for ID is the very first queen I ever caught. She was caught early September in bush land at the back of my house in some damp clay, she is approx 7mm long perhaps another species of iridomyrmex or possibly pheidole. Pictures:http://imgur.com/a/sHKbX

Sorry for the bad picture quality I only have my phone to take pictures with.

She definitely looks like an iridomyrmex queen to me, though part of her looks like pheidole.

KhaoticAnts wrote:Hey guys I recently caught a bunch of black ant at my farm on the mid north coast of NSW, Australia and a singular queen in the bush behind my house in the Lake Macquarie region and was hoping to have any ant taxonomists help me identify them properly.

The black ants I found look to me like Iridomyrmex bicknelli but I need confirmation on this they are approx 6-8mm as some are bigger than others. I caught them during their nuptial flight in the morning of 29/10/16 the workers seem to be aggressive as they kept biting me wherever I walked compared to the Aphaenogaster longiceps I also caught.Pictures: http://imgur.com/a/6NGiW

The 2nd queen up for ID is the very first queen I ever caught. She was caught early September in bush land at the back of my house in some damp clay, she is approx 7mm long perhaps another species of iridomyrmex or possibly pheidole. Pictures:http://imgur.com/a/sHKbX

Sorry for the bad picture quality I only have my phone to take pictures with.

Ahhhh, this looks exactly the same as the queens I currently have. You'll have to get batspiderfish to help you out with this. It's most likely either prolasius or nylanderia going off when I tried to ID my ants.

First queen is formicine -- Nylanderia or Prolasius, most likely (we need to see hair coverage to tell them apart).

Queen two is probably Iridomyrmex.

After looking with a magnifying glass I cant see any hairs on the antenal scapes and they have less than 5 teeth would that mean they are Prolasius?

how good is your magnifying glass? Could you see exactly how many teeth there are?

Its a 4x magnifying glass and I can clearly see 2 teeth so i used an old toy of mine called an eye clops and even though i broke it after seeing how many teeth were on the ant i could see 2 front teeth and what looks like 2 more smaller teeth on one mandible

http://imgur.com/a/mmNis

I also found this myrmecia worker and with the help of antwiki and their key I think it is a Myrmecia desertorum would that be correct?

Quite a pretty ant.