ANTSTORE World of Ants

[MorbidMike]

I have found a species of Lasius ant in my garden (I live in the woods). They have created a very nice path, loads of them are running up and down over the path.

Now I do not know which species it is... They strongly remind me of Lasius fuliginosus, but in my youth I had a nest of these closeby and the ones in my garden are a lot smaller. They have the same black shining carapace but they are just smaller. I have no idea which species this could be. I know this is hard to say without a photograph, maybe I will upload one soon. Perhaps it is Lasius fuliginosus but I have grown so much that the ants look smaller to me (I was 10 years old when I last saw that species). I would estimate their size at around 4 mm, almost the same size as L. niger and definitely smaller than M. rubra.

[Zagone]

To me it certainly sounds like L. fuliginosus. I have two large nests of these where my sister lives and they form these same impressive high-ways.

As far as I've understood they're hard to keep in captivity, which might be no wonder with how they like to wander several meters from their nest en masse. ^^

[MorbidMike]

Indeed, but I was not planning to keep them anyway. I have one Myrmica rubra and one Formica fusca to care for at the moment... that is enough . It is just very fascinating to see them busy, they really remind me of wood ants in their behaviour of tree climbing and massive highways. I have measured the ants and they are 4-5 mm so they could indeed be fuliginosus, I guess my memory is wrong about their size. Thanks for the help!

[damondeionno]

Can you take some pics anyway?

[Zagone]

I can upload some of my pics of the same species for comparison. :]

[damondeionno]

Would be good. I've seen what I have assumed were Lasius fuliginosus a few times in the UK, and also in France, but they didn't look quite the same to me as what Antstore are selling, so it made me wonder if I've got it wrong.

If you could both upload pics that would be great.

[Zagone]

Here's the original image:

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(Click for larger image.)

[MorbidMike]

Yeah these are definitely the same I have in my garden. I will make some pics if I ever get hold of my sister's digital camera...

[Zagone]

Anyone got any good info on these? They always return with such bloated tummies, it's from milking honey-dew right? Or could they also be taking nectar straight from flowers?

[Messorus]

Queen makes new colony by parasitism on other younger colonies of Lasius species-niger, brunneus, eumarginatus, which have nest i tree, near surface....
Take a look at library and books, I can write more but I´m bussy

[damondeionno]

They are the same ones I've seen. Do they have some degree of worker polymorphism? Does anyone know why they are not more common? Once they are established in a location, they seem to be quite dominant. Also, they almost always seem to be associated with dead/dying trees. L. niger don't tend to nest in those locations, so how does the parasitism work.

Also, there doesn't seem to be very much information on them or on Lasius brunneus for that matter.

[MorbidMike]

This species is a social parasite of Lasius umbratus, which is a social parasite of L. niger. As far as I know this L. fuliginosus can also use L. niger as a host but less effectively. There have been experiments on this, if you can read Dutch check out Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar and Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar. There has been successful colony founding using L. niger as a host, but the multiple queens killed each other until only one was left, probably under influence of the L. niger workers who are a monogyn species.

[damondeionno]

Thank you for those links. In reality the translation from Dutch to English is very bad. Can you summarise?

[JimmyVe]

I can always translate a few things. If you tell me which part you like me to translate.