Help me identify my ant species :)

[Redhotwaffles]

Hi I am almost ten years old and I am starting my first ant colony and I captured a queen ant in early July, she was inside my house on the wall. I don’t know what species she is and would love it if someone would help me identify her. I have attached the best picture I could get of her. Thank you!

[Redhotwaffles]

https://youtu.be/-VAE4WoOtlA

[Hawkeye]

Hi I am almost ten years old and I am starting my first ant colony and I captured a queen ant in early July, she was inside my house on the wall. I don’t know what species she is and would love it if someone would help me identify her. I have attached the best picture I could get of her. Thank you!

Hi there Redhotwaffles!

How cool that you are all set up to keep your own ant colony! I saw you got a hybrid nest from the AC store as well? Unfortunately, you didn't post any pictures... It looks like you can attach them to your message when you are writing up a post, but that option isn't available. The server would otherwise be flooded with loads of people trying to upload pictures of their ants.
What you should do instead is get yourself a free imgur.com account, which is easy to use, doesn't have a watermark and is completely free. Once you've done that, you can use the direct link, to display pictures with your post. When you are writing your message, click on the picture button (sun over the mountain) and insert the link (tells the site where the picture is hosted) in between the two tags. It should look like this: [ img] link [ /img] except for the spaces between the brackets.



It is really hard to tell her species from the YouTube clip, as it isn't zoomed in enough for long enough. You can check https://antwiki.org/wiki/United_States for ants living in your country. By the general shape of the ant, I would hazard a guess that she is Aphaenogaster, possibly rudis https://antwiki.org/wiki/Aphaenogaster_rudis but as I said that is a wild guess.

Could you upload some pictures and give us some more information? Like her size, where (geographically) you found her, her colours etc.?

[Redhotwaffles]

Ok I thought the video would be enough I will try to take some pictures today. I live in Washington state. She is very dark colored, almost black but with some red. She has laid some eggs, they are small and white. I don’t know her exact size but I’d say about a centimeter long - I will try to measure her when I get home later!

[Redhotwaffles]

A man on the Facebook group ant keeping enthusiasts said that it is a Tetramorium immigrans. Does that seem right to you Hawkeye?

[tencarnacion]

That looks like a tetramorium to me

[Hawkeye]

I am not sure to be honest. T. Immigrants has a yellowish thorax and yellow legs if I am not mistaken?

[LasiusSapien]

I am not sure to be honest. T. Immigrants has a yellowish thorax and yellow legs if I am not mistaken?

yeah looks more like tetramorium caespitum then immigrants but its hard to say for sure