ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Antlord]

Which Lasius species is this?
On the pictures you can see this species live together with Lasius niger.

[tail__]

It looks like Lasius emarginatus, but you say they live together with Lasius niger? In one nest? Very strange, normally both species are very agressive to each other, and neither are temporary parasites.

[Antlord]

Yes, as you can see on the second picture they were only aggressive to that other ant but not each other.
These pictures were taken at the nest entrance, and I saw the two diffrent species going in and out.

I'll try to observe them again tomorrow, and keep you updated.

[JimmyVe]

Seems strange, but in the world of ants nothing is impossible.

[tail__]

The reddish ants on yout photo are smaller than black ones, so I think grown up, large L. niger colony destroyed young L. emarginatus colony living too near their territory, and robbed their pupae. Lasius species aren't professional slave-robbers, but it can happen occasionally during wars - but mostly wars with the same species. Anyway, what you saw is very unusual!

[Antlord]

Thanks , it could be what you say.
So you think the Lasius niger colony killed the queen of the L.emarginatus colony and this colony will die.

I will keep an eye on the nest and see what happens.

[Kale^^]

Cool, i was like "WTF?" but when i read tail__'s post it made all sense. Probably it's that way, nice pictures btw.

[Skippy]

!!!
this is not Lasius emarginatis , it some Lasius mixtus or Lasius platythorax ... Lasius emarginatus has light red coloured thorax in all variations workers in colony (smaller at start up to bigger in old colony) ... this "optical mistake" (:D) is by Camera , because on sunlight are all black lasius species a bit as with brown thorax
- also young workers are a bit light black coloured (young = <a half of year)