r/ants Jul 02 '21

Official Important: Please read before requesting an identification or creating a post.

52 Upvotes

Important! Everyone should understand the argument against the transportation and rearing of exotics. I will urge everyone to read about it here: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/antfarm/consequences-of-rearing-of-exotic-ant-species-t7500.html

━━━━━━━━━━ ∘◦ Discord ◦∘ ━━━━━━━━━━

For questions about ants, and identification, please ask in our discord server as response times may be quicker. We're always happy to help!: discord.gg/c7qCmfYqYZ

━━━━━━━━━━ ∘◦ Identification ◦∘ ━━━━━━━━━━

How to request an identification:

If possible, clearly focus pictures of the head, side, and top of the body to make identifying easier. What follows is the important information we need to know to help us to identify your ant.

FIRST-Where was it collected? Country and nearest city or town on a map (include location in the thread title), elevation if in a very mountainous area such as the Rockies, Alps, Himalayas, Andes.

SECOND-Habitat of collection, including nesting medium (wood, soil, leaves tied together with silk, etc.) and type of vegetation (forest, grassland, park/lawn/garden, desert).

THIRD-Coloration, hue, and pattern? Uniform?, Head darker? Gaster darker? Legs lighter or darker? Any spots? Also, shininess, dullness.

FOURTH-Distinguishing characteristics, such as one or two segments in waist; location, length, and orientation of any spines or bumps on the mid-portion of the body or waist; head shape, etc.

FIFTH-Length in millimeters. (Width is also helpful.) NO guessing! Stretch out a dead or chilled individual or several individuals of different sizes along with a millimeter rule. 16ths of an inch will do as a poor second to millimeters.

SIXTH-Anything else distinctive, such as odor, behavior, etc.

Tip #1: If you can take clear photographs of the ants up close, then please post them. This would help a lot.

Tip #2: For those who write anting journals, please put the exact location and dates in the thread titles like: Palm Spring, CA (4/10/2004).

Tip #3: If using videos, then please make sure that they are clear, close up, and stable (no shaky camera). Otherwise, they are useless.

Now, you can post your identification request in a new thread (not this one).

This post was originally (copied and pasted) from Antdude's forum: http://antfarm.yuku.com/topic/7397/ant-species-identification-read-post-new-thread


r/ants Nov 06 '21

Join the r/Ants Discord Server!

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39 Upvotes

r/ants 6h ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase I must fuck

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64 Upvotes

r/ants 8h ago

Artworks Crochet ant 🐜

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16 Upvotes

I made this ant for a lab friend working on ants


r/ants 3h ago

Funny Crematogaster laestrygon be like:

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5 Upvotes

r/ants 22h ago

Science Ants are just build different

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39 Upvotes

r/ants 4h ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase What species is this? Manhattan NY

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1 Upvotes

r/ants 21h ago

Chat/General ant bite :(

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17 Upvotes

Around 3-4 days ago I got bit by an ant picking a flower, and it has been swelling since, and hasn’t gone down, am I okay?


r/ants 12h ago

Chat/General Ants in my apartment

3 Upvotes

I live in an apartment.
Our place has been over ridden with ants all of a sudden.
We own 3 cats, I feel bad but I had to use raid on some of my base boards. I don’t know where they are coming from. We aren’t dirty people, the ants came and don’t seem to be going anywhere but they are just there.
I’m looking for a solution to get rid of them.
They come when it’s hot.
We’ve tried to ask the apartment place to spray pesticides but it doesn’t do anything. Any solutions or suggestions?? I’d appreciate it, I’m sick of dealing with them.


r/ants 7h ago

Science Stats advice for ant behavior trials?

1 Upvotes

Stats advice for ant behavior trials?Hi everyone,

I'm running behavioral trials on Pachycondyla ants as a side project alongside my main research (which focuses on ant venom biochemistry), but I wanted to look at when/how the venom actually gets used in different contexts. Problem is I have zero background in ecology or ethology, so I'd love some guidance from people with an ecology/ethology background cause I want to do this properly.

I'm running behavioral trials with Pachycondyla ants confronted with 6 different opponent ant species, across 3 different experimental setups. Each trial is filmed for 1.5–2 minutes (duration varies slightly between videos), so I know I need to normalize for time somehow. And each individual (from both side) is only ever used once so no ant gets reused across trials. For each video, I count occurrences of 5 behaviors:

  • Antennal contact (antennae touch any part of the opponent's body
  • Mandible opening (mandibles open, with the two individuals about one body length apart)
  • Biting
  • Gaster flexing (abdomen curved as if about to sting)
  • Stinging

 What statistical approach would you recommend for count data like this? What kind of plots actually work well for this kind of data? not looking to just dump a boxplot of raw counts if there's something better... I've already gone through some papers on ant behavior / interspecific aggression, but if you have specific methodological references you think are worth checking that use a similar design, I'd love pointers.

Not trying to overthink this, just want something defensible since it'll probably end up as a supplementary part of a bigger paper!

Thanks in advance :)


r/ants 9h ago

Keeping TikTok · WorldOfAnts

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1 Upvotes

My new Ant colony


r/ants 18h ago

Chat/General Opinion Esthetic ants nest

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2 Upvotes

What is your guys experience with Esthetic ants mesh nest. Just wanted to see you guy’s opinion


r/ants 1d ago

Keeping Does anyone have any tips on how to capture queens that are a 10 minute drive away?

3 Upvotes

Does anyone have any tips on how to capture queens that are a 10 minute drive away? Like know when they are having their nuptial flight when you arent really there
Do i just ball it???
Because im hoping to snatch some formica fusca queens that are a 10 minute drive away but i only have lasius niger in my garden.


r/ants 1d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase [ID] (south england) REALLY ANNOYING ANT i'm guessing formica fusca

2 Upvotes

this ant was IMPOSSIBLE to capture it was REALLY skittish and probably had good eyesight. once we finally captured it, i put it in the fridge (assuming it would become still, like lasius niger does) and then after that tried to photo it out of its box since the plastic makes it blurry. IT BOLTED OUT!!! i try to put it in a clearer glass test tube i usually use for queens. IT BOLTS AGAIN and then finally i get it in the test tube and it still isnt that good quality!!! im guessing formica fusca?
the blue grid i use is a 2mm grid, so im guessing its 6mm

2mm grid

https://reddit.com/link/1v2t24n/video/f1crlgmjzmeh1/player


r/ants 1d ago

Chat/General Does anyone have any preserved Myrmecia specimens of any species available for sale? I’m on a quest to collect every species in the genus.

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2 Upvotes

r/ants 1d ago

Chat/General Helping ant s

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5 Upvotes

I'm a real mayor 😎🤙🏻 We provided food and shade for our hardworking ant brothers and sisters 😁 #build 🔶


r/ants 1d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Field ants?

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2 Upvotes

I’ve been seeing these ants enjoying the meadowsweet growing in my yard lately. I am thinking they are Formica dolosa, but as I’ve been reading about the species, I’m seeing they are typically solitary foragers. Any thoughts? Location: Montgomery county, Pennsylvania


r/ants 1d ago

Chat/General Can I feed my carpenter ants a lantern fly?

2 Upvotes

r/ants 2d ago

Chat/General Millions of ants migrating

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194 Upvotes

r/ants 1d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase What kind of ants are these? What are they doing?

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10 Upvotes

Noticed this happening on my spruce tree. I’m in North Eastern Ontario


r/ants 2d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Rescued queen ant

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13 Upvotes

She was drowning in my office building’s kitchen sink so I scooped her up in a plastic cup. I gave her a drop of honey. Is this a native species or an invasive? Flosser for scale lol location is Jacksonville FL


r/ants 2d ago

Keeping I found a wingless queen (?). Can I start a colony with her?

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17 Upvotes

I accidentally uncovered an ant nest (?) that contained a wingless queen, a few workers, and some eggs. It was literally under small wooden shed near my garage. iNaturalist says it might be Camponotus vagus. I'm interested in trying to start my own ant colony, but I’m not sure if it will work since the queen has already laid eggs and has workers. Should I just leave them as they are? It’s not a very good spot to have a colony, in my opinion, but they still know best I guess.


r/ants 2d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase dorylus helvolus?

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52 Upvotes

From Kenya.


r/ants 1d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Giant pile of sand created under tarp in less than a month. Saw a handful of tiny black ants when we first disturbed the tarp, but no activity as we dug and moved some of the sand.

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3 Upvotes

Noticed the huge bulge today when I heard a squirrel messing around under the tarp. Assumed it was a squirrel nest so I just left it, but we ended up poking it and… yeah it’s a giant friggin mound of sand. Sharing cuz it was very fascinating. tomorrow I’ll be moving the rest of the sand and maybe figuring out what’s doing this. and yes I know to be cautious of fire ants.

crazy we didn’t notice this til now; we’re in the yard every day


r/ants 1d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase ID Please

4 Upvotes

These are the best pictures I can get at the moment. Found in extreme Southwest Pennsylvania. It's in a 20mm tube, and I put notebook paper behind it for size reference.