The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

Are some solenopsis species bimorphic? If so which ones?

Some Solenopsis spp. are polymorphic, which means they have more than two worker castes -- many of the larger Solenopsis like S. invicta, S. xyloni, S. geminata, S. amblychila, and S. aurea have a wide range of worker forms. On the other hand, tiny thief-ant group Solenopsis like S. molesta are monomorphic.

Dimorphic would be a good way to describe workers with only two forms, like Pheidole; workers that can be either majors or minors, with nothing in-between.

Thank you. You said the species of queen I had was likely s. xyloni but mouth parts would determine that. What would I be looking for on her mouth parts to determine that?

You'd mainly be separating her from Solenopsis invicta. It's much easier to do with the workers, but the queens of S. invicta will have more needle-like clypeal teeth. Workers of S. invicta have that middle clypeal tooth. The clypeus is visually akin to the ant's "upper lip".

Solenopsis invicta:


Solenopsis xyloni:

Very nice, thank you tons!

Do you know anything about the forelius? There's very little information out there on them that I can find.

StormDancer wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 22, 2018 2:57 pm

Very nice, thank you tons!

Do you know anything about the forelius? There's very little information out there on them that I can find.

Not off the top of my head, sorry. I have limited knowledge of southwestern ants. Species keys/descriptions from Antwiki, Navajo Nature, and Hymenoptera Online Database will be a lot of help if you can familiarize yourself with an ant anatomy chart.

Lol no problem. I appreciate your help. Seems a lot of our ants are not well studied. I can blame anyone. It's hot and it seems like every form of life here is covered with spines or it bites and stings.