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svkPEON: formica sp. ? (1. Apr 2010 22:45)

Hi, can u id these ants for me? first I thought its campo sp. (ligni), but i was told its formica sp. But which one? :) they are aggressive a bit, and have red-black head .. ty :)
photos:
http://img163.imageshack.us/i/formicasp.jpg
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/8922/formicasp2p.jpg
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/231/formicasp3.jpg
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/6986/formicasp4.jpg
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/3410/formicasp5.jpg
i hope its sanguinea! i love this sp. ...

JimmyVe: Re: formica sp. ? (6. Apr 2010 20:28)

Yep Formica its is, hard to say which ones, could be sanguinea or maybe rufa or ...
Do you have better pictures of them ?

svkPEON: Re: formica sp. ? (6. Apr 2010 20:31)

i can make better pictures ... we have many nests of rufa here, but they have rly different nests .. ill make photos, when weather will be better... is there some big difference/sign which can tell me which species is it?

MorbidMike: Re: formica sp. ? (14. Apr 2010 22:58)

Definitely some Formica species.

Here you can see for yourself:
Formica sanguinea:
http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0173153&shot=p&project=netherlandsants
Formica rufa:
http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0173862&shot=p&project=netherlandsants

Another difference is that Formica sanguinea are slave raiders: they usually have Serviformica species in their nest as well. They are also a little bit bigger than Formica rufa (2 mm max).