TINY golden ants!

[BleedingRaindrops]

I was meeting with my life counselor last month and happened to notice a tiny golden dot scurrying around on her coffee table. I get excited by all sorts of tiny critters and I thought it was a mite or a small spider. But when I let my eyes adjust, I recognised the segmented body of an ant, as well as six legs extending from the thorax, and two little antennae from the head. I was amazed. The smallest ants I'd ever seen were a tetramorium species at 1.5mm. This little guy is less than a milimeter long, I'd guess about o.5-0.8mm. I had to zoom all the way in with my camera and he was moving a lot so the picture is blurry, but here's what I got:


That's amazing. I found more and they're all that color, and just a few weeks ago I found one with wings. That one was about 1mm long. Crazy how small they are. Does anyone know what species this is? I'm on Okinawa, Japan. I'm really curious, and would love to raise a colony of these guys. Their color is just so beautiful.

[Annexis]

Im not sure at all if this is the ant, but to me it seems like you are describing Monomorium pharaonis. Im not super sure, but small golden ants kinda made me think about that. I would look into it.

[Nathant]

Wow, that is TINY ! This reminds me of when I somehow found a Brachymyrmex colony. Not even kidding, you would not be able to see them without stopping to observe something directly next to it, and you would STILL think it was your eyes tricking you. But I'm afraid I cant help with the species, I live on the whole other side of the planet. Antweb.org can be a good site to identify your queen though, but there might not even be much known about this species because of its crazy size!

[BleedingRaindrops]

Im not sure at all if this is the ant, but to me it seems like you are describing Monomorium pharaonis. Im not super sure, but small golden ants kinda made me think about that. I would look into it.

I considered monomorium pharaonis because they are said to be the smallest ants, but they have an average length of 2mm and they tend to have a slightly darkened gaster. If anything, the gasters on these guys were brighter than the rest of their body, and none of them is anywhere near 2mm. I think they might be Plagiolepis alluaudi but I'll have to get some better pictures before I can be sure.

[SpeciesK]

Maybe you discovered a new species! Or genus! You can call them Bleedingmyrmex raindropsensis and then you can get it made official with the Ant Name Authorities.

[larynx]

That......is.....super...tiny. nice find. Now to find the queen.
A better pic may help with the ID. Also i have placed this topic in the ant ID center to help.