Hello guys,
i needed to repot some ornamental grass i bought last year, and to my suprise as i pulled it away from the old pot, all these bright yellowish insects started running all over, as i went in for a closer look i saw them to be ants....wow i never saw ants this colour here before, so hopefully somenone can throw some light on the matter, youl also see, that as i was taking the photos a winged queen came out, so i got some photos of her too, she has yellow legs.
yuol see on the photos that the tiny eggs are everywhere, but i scooped up all i could and put them all back in the pot with the plant...and will leave them for now.
Firstly it looks like Lasius flavus , but from the picture of the winged queen , you can see she has small gaster. This is specific for parasite species of Lasius group. There is only one yellow/orange parasite specie here in Europe , and it is Lasius umbratus. I am not sure but you can try feed them ... Lasius flavus queen will eat a lot to full gaster , umbratus only a bit (eat only to stay alive).
Could be Lasius flavus, i dont think there is many ofther spec they could be..
you saw these in england before steve?
Firstly it looks like Lasius flavus , but from the picture of the winged queen , you can see she has small gaster. This is specific for parasite species of Lasius group. There is only one yellow/orange parasite specie here in Europe , and it is Lasius umbratus. I am not sure but you can try feed them ... Lasius flavus queen will eat a lot to full gaster , umbratus only a bit (eat only to stay alive).
culd be, although umbratus is not common in the UK, flavus is fairly common tho, wuld be my bet
was very happy to discover a few colonies living near my new house :D
I would also go for Lasius flavus but like Skippy said, it also could be Lasius umbratus .
yer im saying Lasius f lavus, loads of them in my garden, see them alot
note about species names, second part is always lower case :) Lasius flavus
Skippy is right, the winged queen's shape is very characteristic to Chthonolasius umbratus (there are actually a few related species, but they look almost identical). L. flavus queen has much larger gaster. The workers look very similar to L. flavus, but are a little bit larger. L. umbratus is actually quite common in Europe, but is much harder to spot than L. flavus, because, unlike L. flavus, nesting simply in soil and building small mounds, L. umbratus usually build nests between roots or cracks in buildings, so it is rare to accidentaly find their colony. But this is the case.
Laisus flavus don't have yellow legs so it must be something else.