ANTSTORE World of Ants

[acerola]

Hi, I found an ant queen in the kitchen sink under the open window yesterday evening. I did not identified her yet. As a matter of fact I'm not sure about her subfamily yet.
She is quite big 12-13mm long. The antenna has 12 section and she has 9 teeth in her mandible. She has only one segment between her gaster and alitrunk.
Here are the pictures.

[Skippy]

Hi Acerola

I found somethink like that today evening (in kitchen too ) ,but a bit smaller - 9-10mm. I don´t know what is it. The body is like Camponotus ,but her head... I don ´t know ,I never see queen like that in Slovakia. I believe (if is she fertile) ,she make colony and by worker we will discover what is it. When I found my queen ,I went outside ,but at never place no some second queen. What you know ,maybe you found new ant species .

Very nice ant and very nice photos

Greetings Skippy

[acerola]

I think I know the answer. I received an answer from a Hungarian forum member again. I don't tell you the answer yet. I'm curious if anybody can get the same result. I have to help you with more pictures. I think that is essential for the correct answer.

One more picture from the face.

And one picture from the end of the abdomen. This one is the essential one, there is no hole at the top arrow it is somewhere at the other arrows.

[JimmyVe]

I can not tell you witch species it is but she still has her wings. Maybe she is not fertilized. (I know i is not a 100% prove if she doesn't has her wings)

[Skippy]

My queen already have not wings and she has 4 eggs now - very quickly queens ,I believe ,your queens is fertilized too Acerola
Keep up the good work!
Skippy

[acerola]

I have the first eggs also.
There are not too much activity in the guessing game, so I reveal you the solution. This is a quite rare ant. Liometopum microcephalum It has very big colonies in oak and pine trees. A similar in behaviour like Lasius fuliginosus with pathways between treetrunks. A little polymorf meaning there are different ant sizes. And the workers are quite attractive they have orange thorax and brown abdomen.
I read a russian Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar (in english of course) that stated, that the queens are inseminated in the nest. So they are fertile in spite of their wings.

Thats all now, if you have any new information, just write here.

[Skippy]

Now I think Acerola ,my ant is some small Lasius (8mm is small for normal lasius) . But I don´t like small Lasius ,so I make small colony and I will get it to trade . I am interested by your Liometopum microcephalum ,how size worker it is? when queen is a bit big.

Thanks Skippy

[JimmyVe]

nice ants, but i think they are protected not ? (I'm not sure you may keep them)

[Skippy]

I think ,in central europe are protected only original Formica ant spec (no serviformica and more else)

Skippy

[acerola]

I think it is not protected here. In the other hand Formica (rufa and pratensis) nests are protected, but what about a single Formica queen?
The worker size is 3-7mm and the queen size is 9-11mm in my book. My queen a little bigger.
By the way she has very small eggs but many of them almost 10 already.

[Skippy]

I am happy now to see the first workers Acerola. How it is with your page ,you making it?

[acerola]

I will post pictures from the first workers.
I 'm not working on my page I have so much other things to do. But since it is already cost me money year by year I will definetly do it one day.

[Skippy]

Yes it is good idea ,you making nice photos and you can get it on your private page on internet ,I have my page on ic.cz and it is free with PHP and 250MB free disc space.

Good luck!

[Krümel]

Thank you! ^^
You'ce solved a grea mystery of me.
Last year I spent two weeks of my summer holiday in Italy, Toscana.
I was able to identify almost every ant I found but these ones.
I found them in some old trees like in the report and din't know what species it could be. I just saw workers, but they weren't Lasius nor Camponotus like.
The workers were really beautiful, their abdomens glanced when the sun shined on them.
Good luck and have fun with this ants!

PS: A picture of the workers I've found.

[acerola]

Yes that's it. They call it velvety tree ant in english because of the fine hairs on its abdomen as we can see on your photos also.
It was also a mystery for me for a while but only for 2 days.
The guy who identified it for me is studiing ants in a university and they have big colonies of this species in their town. I never see it myself in the wild.