Is she what I think she is?
Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2024 4:16 pm
Size: ~12-14 mm
When: 1/27/2024, 4:00 PM
Where: United States, Central North Carolina (near Raleigh), suburb
Appearance: Orange
Behavior: She crawled around somewhat quickly until she got into the test tube. After that, she eventually stopped and began cleaning her body and antennae.
Pictures: https://imgur.com/a/pnVkDBl, sorry about the horrible quality.
Additionally: Several black colored males were found alive around the area I found the queen after I put her in a test tube setup. I couldn't find any to take pictures of besides the dead one which is in the Imgur post which was almost blown away. There were originally several found in the same spots (the tops of fence posts) as queen. All of them were gone or dead besides the one in the Imgur thing. I suspect the others died and blew away. Not sure if males are ever different colors from the rest of the species, but yeah.
It IS late January, could she be a winter ant? I have no experience with identification, so call me out if I'm wrong here :/
When: 1/27/2024, 4:00 PM
Where: United States, Central North Carolina (near Raleigh), suburb
Appearance: Orange
Behavior: She crawled around somewhat quickly until she got into the test tube. After that, she eventually stopped and began cleaning her body and antennae.
Pictures: https://imgur.com/a/pnVkDBl, sorry about the horrible quality.
Additionally: Several black colored males were found alive around the area I found the queen after I put her in a test tube setup. I couldn't find any to take pictures of besides the dead one which is in the Imgur post which was almost blown away. There were originally several found in the same spots (the tops of fence posts) as queen. All of them were gone or dead besides the one in the Imgur thing. I suspect the others died and blew away. Not sure if males are ever different colors from the rest of the species, but yeah.
It IS late January, could she be a winter ant? I have no experience with identification, so call me out if I'm wrong here :/