Request for Queen with colony ID

[Cycles]

I was helping my parents get rid of some junk from their back yard, and found this colony inside a old propane regulator and hose that was heading for the rented dumpster.

Queen is around 5-6mm, with workers being around one third of her length.

Queen is also a glossy black in and out of light, with a wider thorax, and head shape, compared to my Solenopsis Invicta queen.


I covered too much of the 3/8 tubing when covering their setup, and the queen ended up squatting in the tube.

Pictures:

[Cycles]

Forgot to add that I'm located on the central west coast of Florida.

[SYUTEO]

Do they look like Pheidole megacephala?

[Cycles]

Do they look like Pheidole megacephala?

I believe so,

The images I can look up for Pheidole megacephala queens look just like the one I found, and the majors have massive heads compared to their bodies.

Thank you for the help.

[SolenopsisKeeper]

Forgot to add that I'm located on the central west coast of Florida.

Could also be P. navigans

[Cycles]

Forgot to add that I'm located on the central west coast of Florida.

Could also be P. navigans

I was looking for a difference, main thing I have seen in looked up pictures is either red or black queens.


On a different note, I found an Odontomachus queen with two larva a few weeks ago. I have been looking around a couple times a week for a chance at another, but found a different queen in some damp leaf litter today.

She is tiny though, around 2-4mm, black gaster, and a dark red/orange thorax & head in the light.

I have a macro lens coming for better pictures in the future, so here are my phones bad pictures.

[SYUTEO]

The ant in the picture is probably Lasius.

[Cycles]

I took some better pictures of the queen,

[SolenopsisKeeper]

The ant in the picture is probably Lasius.

Probably L. umbratus, as neoniger are rare and scattered in Florida. L. umbratus is a parasitic species, so she needs host workers. Look into research on this species are parasitic ants.

[Cycles]

The ant in the picture is probably Lasius.

Probably L. umbratus, as neoniger are rare and scattered in Florida. L. umbratus is a parasitic species, so she needs host workers. Look into research on this species are parasitic ants.

She is accepting sugar water, going to see if I can find some Lasius workers and pupae.

I might have to venture further than my back yard though. I have found all my queens and colonies so far in my back yard cleaning up junk, and looking under random stuff. There are a ton of Big Head ant colonies, at least two or three odontomachus colonies, massive colonies of what I think are Black crazy ants, Pseudomyrmex gracilis colonies. The Solenopsis Invicta colonies tend to stick mostly to my front yard, but I haven't identified any Lasius species besides this parasitic queen.

I managed to capture 3 multi-queen colonies of Camponotus Planatus, that were nesting in random stuff bound for a rented dumpster.