13 replies to this topic

[Cole]

Location of collection: campground

Date of collection: May 12, 2014

Habitat of collection: Pine/Oak forest

Length: 7mm

Coloration: Black with fuzzy almost velvety silverish gasters. Back of thorax is redish-brown. Mandables are same redish-brown.

Nest: If I remember correctly they were small valcano shaped mounds. The workers were small and black, maybe 3-4mm in length.

 

The pictures are pretty crappy but I'd be happy just getting the genus. There's three of them in there and they have five teensy tiny little eggs. They seem to really like the moist cotton since they spend most of their time clinging to it.

 

 

 

 

 

[dspdrew]

How did you find these? Where there more than one together? Did you see the alates coming out of these volcano-shaped nests?

[Cole]

I dug these up. All three of them were together. I dug another one up but it was by itself so I just kept that one seperate. I didn't see the alates coming out of the nests but there were a lot of them on the ground. Some of them flew off and some of them were victims of a formica nest nearby.

[dspdrew]

I guess my question is how do you know these were associated with the volcano-shaped nests.

[Cole]

I just assumed sine the volcano nests were everywhere. I'm not 100% sure these came from the volcano shaped nests.

[dspdrew]

Were the founding chambers just small mounds of dirt about an inch in diameter?

[Cole]

They were actually. Some of them were a little bigger, maybe 2 inches.

[dspdrew]

Dorymyrmex insanus I think. If they are D. insanus, then the volcano-shaped nests would be associated with them as long as they were about four inches in diameter or so (a well-developed one). I also have only seen them fly right after a decent rain. Did it rain the day before at all?

 

Dorymyrmex insanus isn't exactly the real species name, but the best name to give to the concolorous brown or black ones until they get the genus revised. This site (http://www.navajonat...ex-insanus.html) has some nice information on D. insanus, including a lot of other ants in our area.

[Cole]

Yes, the nests were definitely about 4" in diameter. It did not rain the day before but my grandparents who live up there said that it had been fairly cold and they just had a recent warm up. I figured the sudden increase in temperature might have had something to do with it.

[dspdrew]

Yes a sudden warm up is also part of it from what I have seen, as with most of the ants around here.

[Cole]

That page you linked says D. insanus thrive in hot, dry environments. That definitely doesn't sound like Pine Grove, CA. It snows in the winter and rains quite often. It also doesn't seem to mesh with the way these queens behave, they are basically glued to the moist cottonball in their test tube 24/7. I wish I would have collected some of the workers. I don't know what I was thinking.

[dspdrew]

Well, from what I know about them, is most of that description applies to the immediate area where you find them. I see places that don't look at all like a place you would find them in, but then there will be one tiny little area where there's not much vegetation and just a lot of dirt, and there will be a bunch of them. Also, I find them in high altitudes around here where it snows all the time too. As for the queens, most any queen you put in a test tube will stay near or on the wet cotton, if they aren't busy trying to pull out the cotton plug.

[Cole]

Okay, awesome. Dorymyrmex insanus it is then. I did a google image search for "Dorymyrmex insanus queen" and found your journal. The queen in your journal looks almost identical.

[dspdrew]

Oh cool. Yeah, I have a few new colonies of these and a colony from last year that is quite large now.