Hello,
I am back from my vacation to New Jersey and have started to process some videos / pictures from the trip. For now, I'll share footage from three nuptial flights I saw while home. I filmed these flights in Hi-Def ... so if your computer can support it I recommend you watch in HD.
Pheidole pilifera - These ants flew later in the evening on July 4. I've ONLY EVER seen these ants fly immediately after a rainfall (within 30 minutes). So if you have these in your area ... keep an eye on local weather forecasts.
Pheidole bicarinata - These ants flew very late in the evening on June 28th or 29th, I can't remember honestly but I'm not sure it matters. I do remember that it was around 8:30 - 9 pm which is why the video is kind of dark ... since it was after sunset. No rain for a day or two prior to this flight. From my observations these ants don't really care whether it rained or not ... and their flights are almost nightly for a few weeks in June and July.
Lasius interjectus - These ants flew late in the evening on the same night as the Pheidole bicarinata. So, similar conditions were noted at the time of flight. These ants typically have much larger nuptial flights in May and June ... so these may have been the stragglers from earlier flights. A lot of them were missing wings and or had wing damage. They flew one more time on July 1st but that was the last I saw of them. No workers are present in the video but there were some workers near the nest entrance.
That's all for now. I still have to process the footage from the 4th Annual NJ Ant-Together. That will be posted in a separate thread later on.
