The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

caught a possible myrmica queen she has one worker that recently enclosed and I need help identifying her I live in Manitoba and eally want to know what she is. some possible species she could be are, myrmica Americana, myrmica fraticornis, myrmica incomplete, myrmica latifrons, myrmica lobifrons, myrmica monticola, and myrmica nearctica. if you keep or are familar any of these and think it is not one of the species I listed up there please let me know. { not sure how to upload a photo casue Im new to this} send me a message if you know how to

Watch this to learn how to post pics: https://youtu.be/c1Mu4Rw3s8w.

Myrmica can only be identified through microscopic examination of a worker.

I thought you said you had to disect a worker to id it.

AntsDakota wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 02, 2018 2:31 pm

I thought you said you had to disect a worker to id it.

In some cases you do! The main point is that Myrmica is moderately diverse and the differences between most species are so subtle that even decent macro photography is insufficient.

Some ants simply won't be identified on forums like this without microscopic photographs. Lasius brevicornis/Lasius nearcticus is another ant of late which will not be identified to the species level.

Since I used to have two different species of Myrmica I can confirm one thing. Ruginodis is the only one off all the Myrmica that can be identified via the queen. Now in all honesty it took 3 solid days of research and numerous conversation with people familiar with the Myrmica species but we concluded the same idea/ theory.

If you look very closely you can see the exoskeleton of ruginodis is very distinct compared to most other Myrmica. The main difference is all images and videos and the little queen I had (sadly she passed away) the exoskeleton of these ruginodis queens lack that shiny coat the rest have. They also have a darker browny red colour. I will get the link to the Google drive I have that shows the two different species.

And here it is.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1LpF7sOl1abRLTNvzXMLSz1bCgRwiO-NS

The darker and really angry looking one was what we had agreed was not Rubra and what we believe greatly was ruginodis. As it was the only queen that was accurately identical to any and all ruginodis we came across. I will try to find more this summer with more accurate information.

For my possible fellow Irish hiding in here (I pray there is more then the two of us xD) the ruginodis was located in the clondalkin area near the boot road.
The most likely Rubra species is in abundance between clondalkin and ****.

Also last note from personal observations.
Rubra (or what I think could be Rubra not sure with that one.) seem to be very curious by nature. Where as the ruginodis seem very aggressive by nature. Even when fed in her test tube portal. She would sting everything but the honey. She was a very cranky woman sadly. The poor green grape was attacked to a second death but she then ate it so that was good.

Ruganoidies and rubra queens can be identified

So can sabuleti and scabranoidies

I can’t remember the details but I think that ruganodies and rubra both have a curve in the antenna scape
They can be identified by the petiole and the spines

Some myrmica also have outgrowths on the angle of the antenna scape.

I can remember that ruganoidies has a stepped petiole and rubra has a rounded petiole