Anthony and I found this absolute beauty of a queen when we stopped at a prairie going north to comstock, only about 2 minutes earlier we were talking about how pretty formica prociliata queens are supposedly so we dug into a nest for fun and the queen just came running out. later we also found a queen of a mature colony but Anthony bring responsible put it back. We collected 400+ workers along with the queen of the first colony and she’s currently in a tubs and tubes setup with about 100 workers until I can get formisquariums.
As you can see her thorax is very hairy on the sides, front, and back which I assume is some sort of defense mechanism as they’re parasites, and about being parasites i’m thinking that their color could have something to do with them being supposed pallidefulva parasites.
Edited by Amatty76, July 1 2023 - 12:08 PM.