3 replies to this topic

[BrittonLS]

I saw some ants today at a cafe that were walking along their trails with their gasters raised straight up. Does anyone know what this behavior is? Some of them were even completely folded over facing forwards. They might have been crematogaster, they did seem to have heart shaped gasters. Sorry, didn't take a pick. The were brown/red with black gasters though, probably around 2-3 mm. Or they were just fire ants. I'm having trouble with that... Everything looks like fire ants to me.

[dspdrew]

Sounds like the behavior of Crematogaster.

[Alza]

Gaster flagging is possible. When the ants are bothered, they will raise their gasters, and I forgot what they do, but the end effect is repelling other insects/ants. You can actually smell some of the chemicals with solenopsis xyloni, its kinda weird ._.

and very distinct.

[AntsTexas]

i saw a couple of spiders running around doing this at a park while i was queen hunting....

 

the ground was hot, they were prob keeping them up so they would not get burned

Edited by Ant Man, June 6 2015 - 11:26 AM.