30 replies to this topic

[Foogoo]

1. Location of collection: Chantry Flats, Arcadia, California.
2. Date of collection:  4-3-2015.
3. Habitat of collection:  Under rock, residence garden
4. Length (from head to gaster):  1.5 mm.
5. Color, hue, pattern and texture:  Black.
6. Distinguishing characteristics: Smelly.
7. Anything else distinctive: Panicky and runs around psychotically. Polygynous.
8. Nest description:

 

Found these under a rock in the yard of a fellow anter who lives up in the mountains. Not a great pic, the best I could do with these guys.

 

Edited by Foogoo, April 4 2015 - 4:43 PM.

[Alza]

Technomyrmex SP

[dspdrew]

I want to say that's Tapinoma sessile, but 1.5 mm is a little small.

[Alza]

Technomyrmex SP, I have the same one.

[Foogoo]

I'll try to get a better picture tomorrow. What would be some giveaways to differentiate Tapinoma and Technomyrmex?

[Gregory2455]

Its not Formica that is all I can say.

[Foogoo]

I want to say that's Tapinoma sessile, but 1.5 mm is a little small.

I took another look and the workers could be 2mm, but no larger. Their behavior sounds like Tapinoma though.

Edited by Foogoo, April 4 2015 - 7:42 AM.

[dspdrew]

Technomyrmex SP, I have the same one.

 

How do you know you have Technomyrmex? The only North American record of those I see in AntWeb, is from San Francisco.

[Foogoo]

Here's a few more pictures showing the nest with queens and brood. These guys are very skittish, they sprint from cover to cover trying to hide, more like earwigs do than ants that I've seen.

[Foogoo]

Seems to resemble Technomyrmex albipes (difficilis). If it is, I guess they've spread to Socal...

[Alza]

Dude, i swear, idk. I just found them in the mountains, and they look exactly like the head pictures. and mine looked like those ones too 

[Foogoo]

Dude, i swear, idk. I just found them in the mountains, and they look exactly like the head pictures. and mine looked like those ones too 

 

So if we are right, they could be pretty widespread across Socal. These were in the hills too, I wonder if there's something preventing them from moving downhill.

[Alza]

They were in a semi-dry area, next to a very wooded areas boundaries. I also found some yellow ants with a huge colony, and they didn't seem aggresive. They lived right next to each other...Literally 

[Foogoo]

There were a bunch of Liometopum occidentale wandering around these guys too. What does your colony eat? So far, I haven't seen them eat anything I've offered them.

[Vendayn]

Tapinoma sessile look like that too, and are very common in mountain areas. Tapinoma sessile have white colored legs like that. I doubt its the invasive ant, but heh...can't be 100%. Plus, if it was Technomyrmex albipes...I doubt they'd survive up in the mountains. As far as I know, since they also live in the humid tropical part of Florida...that tells me they wouldn't likely survive in high altitudes. If they DID, then there would be no reason they wouldn't spread past the mountains. They do look pretty similar though. I know when I sent a sample to a local Myrmecologist, thinking it was the invasive ant...it turned out just to be Tapinoma sessile which actually DO become invasive in urban areas.

 

I just know Tapinoma sessile I always find up in the mountains (and also lower altitudes sometimes). And Tapinoma sessile DO get up to 10 million ants in a colony, in disturbed areas (that includes if there are any solitary houses nearby which would have disturbed the land, not just in a town/village/city).

 

You can easily figure it out by sacrificing a worker, smashing one with your finger and see if it leaves a gross coconut-like smell behind.

 

Will pretty much solve the mystery.

 

Also, if you have a cat or/and a dog...they go CRAZY for this "smell". All my cats go crazy and become super...well...they seem to go in heat after I've had Tapinoma sessile all over my arms/hands. They do the same for Dorymyrmex bicolor too.

 

And finally. Tapinoma sessile are pretty hard to keep in captivity. Mine never ate, and at first they laid tons of eggs...but, month after month they'd die off for some reason until there wasn't any left. Seems to be a lot of people's experience with them.

Edited by Vendayn, April 5 2015 - 7:14 PM.

[Foogoo]

And Technomyrmex doesn't smell? Because these definitely smell.

[Alza]

Mine won't eat anything besides honey, and they killed a fruit fly....(not sure if they ate it) and there were liometopum occidentale foragers all around also, they just didn't have their colony there, but they had a massive trail 

maybe a new type of technomyrmex ?

[dspdrew]

And Technomyrmex doesn't smell? Because these definitely smell.

 

These are all part of the Dolichoderinae subfamily which are odorous ants. I'm not sure if all dolichoderines smell, because I don't smell anything when a Dorymyrmex insanus is crushed, but it would be a reasonable assumption that a dolichoderine might stink.

[Vendayn]

This might help

 

http://urbanentomolo...ite_footed.html

 

and a part taken from there

 

"They are similar in appearance to the odorous house ant, Tapinoma sessile (Say). They are slightly larger, more than ¹/₈ inch long, with a single flattened node (petiole) on the pedicel that is hidden from view by the gaster. The key identifying characteristic is the pale yellow coloring of the tarsi at the end of the legs. They are considered the most difficult structure-infesting ant to control."

 

But yes, Technomyrmex have a fruity odor. So, they'd have a smell too. Maybe its about the same, but I know T. sessile smell like old rotten coconut (though different people smell it differently).

[Gregory2455]

Liometopum do not smell, or do they?