Hey everyone. Today I went to Barbara Key Park at Lake in The Hills. I initially went there with AnthonyP163 to find Tetramorium tsushimae dealates. We had looked at the weather and decided that the conditions were perfect. Well, when we got there, we found ants flying, however, they were Forelius. Quite a rare sighting in Northern Illinois.
Anthony has significantly better camera equipment than I do and says "They're too pilose on their tibiae and scape for the recorded Forelius pruinosus." So this has kind of left us scrambling as Forelius pruinosus is the only listed species of the genus in Illinois. With that being said though, it's thought that Forelius pruinosus is a species complex and not a species, so this could be a species of Forelius that would be in the Forelius pruinosus complex.
Anyways,
I've got 3 queens and I introduced 2 workers to them. Hopefully I can get these girls to 'found' a colony and get some brood going.
! I’ve been trying to find some Forelius, but can’t seem to locate any!
. If you can find somewhere like that, your chances increase of finding them exponentially.
