ANTSTORE World of Ants

[MorbidMike]

I have been watching a F. sanguinea colony close to me with quite some interest. Today I was watching them, and I saw one of them carrying a dead Lasius flavus worker. I looked closeby and soon found the L. flavus nest: it was being harassed by Formica sanguinea! The F. sanguinea did not engage in open combat, they were just running over the anthill, and sometimes they would dig into it a small bit, and if they were lucky emerge with one L. flavus worker in their mandibles. They would then kill that ant, carry it back and continue like this. When more flavus workers emerged to do battle the F. sanguinea simply ran off. They really avoided combat but continued snagging some flavus workers from the nest one by one. Very interesting to see!
I will check them out again tomorrow, the nest is really close to other nests of several different species. It is not a very big nest yet (200-300 ants perhaps?), I guess that is why they will not fight but do "hit n run".

[JimmyVe]

Probably. In small colonies every worker is needed so they dont risk losing one if they dont have to.