5 replies to this topic

[BrittonLS]

1. Location of collection: Found these in my pool in my backyard, suburban area at night less than an hour after sunset.
2. Date of collection: 8/20/15
3. Habitat of collection: -
4. Length (from head to gaster): 5-6mm
5. Color, hue, pattern and texture: Brown, two of them might be yellow
6. Distinguishing characteristics: There might be at least two species, though I can't be sure. Perhaps some of them are males, but I also saw some distinctly male ants along with them in the pool. Two that seem smaller appear distinctly more yellow and the darker ones are bigger and have noticeably rough rugae on the head and a dark spot around their three occelli. The smaller ones have a singular node petiole. Two of them started to fight that I think were different species. 

 

The big ones might be... Pheidole? And Dorymyrmex?

 

http://imgur.com/a/mYFTW
 

 

This seems like a two node?

Edited by BrittonLS, August 20 2015 - 9:17 PM.

[kellakk]

Looks like Formica and Pheidole to me.  That's just off the top of my head though.

 

Edit: At that size, you might have Pheidole hyatti. 

Edited by kellakk, August 20 2015 - 10:05 PM.

[dspdrew]

Could you back the camera up a bit?

[Jonathan21700]

The queens with two nodes are Pheidole sp.

Edited by Jonathan21700, August 21 2015 - 9:56 AM.

[James C. Trager]

And the others look like Dorymyrmex flavus.

[BrittonLS]

Album: http://imgur.com/a/Nusng

 

I took some photos of one of the deceased queens. I hear Pheidole is hard to ID and probably more so with just a queen, but maybe I can hear some ideas.

She is 6mm long and is very fuzzy all over with short setae and has noticeable rugae on her face, but much less elsewhere. The back of her mesonoma has an interesting structure like it's cupped for her petiole, (found in the last picture) but that may be a common feature I haven't noticed before. She seems to have no madibular teeth at all. And also these flew after sundown.