ID US Maryland 3mm 4-10

[AntsMclama]

Working around the plants outside we have sone stepping bricks. I picked one up and found a group of 4, what i think are queens together.

The queens all look the same. Are 3mm from gastor to mandibles. I cant quite count but looks to be at least 5 segments on the antenna. And i think there are 2 petioles, i cant quite tell with my magnifying glass. But pictures, to me at least show only 1. The gastor is quite long and from the top, the quiens are just long in general and not very wide. The head also seems long also.
Found the queens in the exact same spot i found lasius claviger workers before winter.

Now im posting this from the data limit of my phone, so sorry for any problems. I had to crop the pictures to just the viewable area's and made them into 1 for my own convenience.

Link. http://imgur.com/HMKIhMq



Thx for any and all help

[Martialis]

Wow! Keep them all together! Stigmatomma pallipes. This ant is incredibly rare. That's a colony. They feed on centipedes almost exclusively.

[Nathant]

Wow! You just foud the mother of finds. I would say Stigmatomma pallipes as well. Their brood takes a whole year to develop and they have very specialized diets.

[Martialis]

I feel I should add they take a year because they actually feed on their young's hemolymph, hence the name "dracula ants".

Additionally, this is a website where I suspect you'll be able to buy their favorite food. I've attached the page the food is on.

http://shop.bugsincyberspace.com/Geophilomorpha-bic613.htm

[jwatson16202]

Wow nice find.
Keep us posted on these please!

[Batspiderfish]

Amblyoponinae do not a petiolar scale such as this (their petiole almost appears to be fused with the first gastral tergite). Additionally, Stigmatomma pallipes are 5-7mm long. This is from Ponerinae, either Ponera pennsylvanica or Hypoponera opacior. The little spike on the underside of the petiole suggests Ponera. These all look like workers to me, although there is no clear view of the mesosoma.

[Batspiderfish]

Having said that, nice work with the pictures! It is better to crop a photograph than to get so close with your camera that nothing about the ant is visible. Not only did you embed your image, but it is a combination of all the important parts of various other photos! Bravo!

You have no idea how fatiguing it is to sift through everybody's hyperlinks. I bet I'll get fed up with it again this summer and demand images be embedded before I'll touch an ID.

[AntsMclama]

Having said that, nice work with the pictures! ....

Thx! If you ever see my name in a new ID thread, you will see the same layout with hopefully better taken pictures every time.

Im thinking they are workers too, but i got hopefull with the large looking gastor.
2 things i forgot to mention in the OP is, they have a difficult time climbing the walls of the test tube. And their head is wider than their mesosoma.
I will look at my pictures on my pc to see if there is a better picture, but those were the most detailed.
I used my camera's built in macro, that was ok. Tried a my laser pointers glass over my phone, they were amazing in the preview but not even half the quality when shown on my pc.
So i just had to go with my camera's MF and get a decent focus trying iso 100, think my shutter speed was at 30 for the pictures.

Ponera makes me feel better, i was starting to worry as i researched into the "rare" species! (Thx guys!) On how to take care of them.but at this point, better figure out if they are queens!

[Batspiderfish]

I've had the most success feeding them Drosophila (vinegar flies). I don't think they are fond of sugars, but you might as well give it a shot.