9 replies to this topic

[dspdrew]

1. Location of collection:  San Antonio Falls, Mt. Baldy, California.
2. Date of collection:  6-22-2013.
3. Habitat of collection:  Pine/Oak Forest.
4. Length (from head to gaster):  Queen: 7 mm; Worker: 3.5 mm.
5. Color, hue, pattern and texture:  Queen: All brown; Worker: Brown thorax, dark brown head and gaster.

6. Distinguishing characteristics: Queen: Very flattened thorax. Workers: 12 antennal segments.

7. Distinguishing behavior: Spin cocoons.

I found the queen out on a different trail a little ways down the road from where I found the nest with the workers and alates. I was checking out some Camponotus, when she just landed on the piece of wood they were nesting in. I could tell that queen was the exact same species as the ants at nest I found earlier, plus they were obviously flying that night.

Queen

 

 

 

 























Worker
















Nest


Habitat

[dspdrew]

Dr. Trager seems to think these may be L. crypticus.

[dspdrew]

I recently revisited this same nest this year and got some new specimens I was able to get pictures of with my microscope. Maybe these new pictures will confirm that these are L. crypticus, or suggest they're something else.

 

 

 

[dspdrew]

So it's been about two years since I last updated this thread, and I now have some microscope pictures of one of these queens. I recently caught a whole bunch of these queens, and every single one of them has the strange flattened thorax, so it's definitely not just some defect. Can any of the experts still confirm these are Lasius alienus as previously suggested.
 

The new Lasius [worker] images look like straight-up Lasius alienus (americanus) to me. The name in parentheses is currently in synonymy, but if anyone ever revises the Nearctic species in this genus, I expect "americanus" will become the species name for this ant.

The queens certainly don't look like the L. alienus queens I see everyone else post, with this strange thorax and all.
 

 

 

[Batspiderfish]

Still weird. I can only imagine that parasitism or disease is somehow involved. If it were mutation or speciation, then i'd figure we'd see the workers to show some evidence of this change, but they still look like the same ol' Lasius alienus or Lasius crypticus.

Edited by Batspiderfish, July 13 2016 - 2:41 AM.

[dspdrew]

Still weird. I can only imagine that parasitism or disease is somehow involved. If it were mutation or speciation, then i'd figure we'd see the workers to show some evidence of this change, but they still look like the same ol' Lasius alienus or Lasius crypticus.

 

Yes, but all the queens look this way (I have about 15 of them). These even came from a different area of the mountains. I'm pretty sure the ones I just caught are the same species as the one I caught three years ago. What are the chances there are two Lasius species in the same general area with queens that look this way? Another unique thing about them, is they fly in June. The ones two years ago did, and the ones I caught this year did as well.

[Batspiderfish]

I saw the post where all the pros were stumped by this too. 

At least the workers key out. We do absolutely know that the queens came from the same nest, right?

[dspdrew]

If I remember right, the original alate was taken directly from the nest I got the workers from. I think I just removed her wings for the pictures. Most of the queens I have now are days away from getting their first workers, so we will know for sure what workers belong to them very soon. It's amazing how fast these things are developing. It's only been about 25 days so far.

[dspdrew]

So my queens finally got workers. These look different to me than the workers I found a long time ago. Are these even Lasius? Their gasters look kind of pointy. They're about 2.5 mm in length, have 12 antennal segments, and spin cocoons.

 

 

 

[Batspiderfish]

The mounted queen still looks like Lasius to me, although I haven't stopped scratching my head about that mesonotum.

Edited by Batspiderfish, August 2 2016 - 6:55 AM.