ANTSTORE World of Ants

[AndyB]

Dose anyone know were abouts they live. And do they live in south England?

[Messorus]

Hello
I was in south england myself in 2006, but I can´t said you if your locality they live I went into South Devon, Torquay...
But now seriously... Myrmica rubra preffer open and also forrest country with mixed foliaceous trees.... They like a bit wet localities, cause humidity in the ground which´s near their nest is usually around 70%.... Colonies have ground and underground nesting, but the best thing is, that the queens are restraining nearly surface, so you can find them easy.... These red ants like to make their nest under old woods, which are laying on the surface. They also like objects like old bricks, old leaves... When you remove some of these object sidelong, you usually can see a lot of workers and more queens....
Their colonies have usually about 300 workers and more than 20 queens, but it´s about their habit...... Colonies are behaving like superorganisms and they usually have few smaller colonies, which are comunicating with their mother colonies by some kind of ways... I don´t know much about these ants, this things wrote up are by my own experience. I think here are people which can give you more, better informations... And sorry from my bad english

[AndyB]

Thanks for the info, i read that someone had a colony with 6 queens and over 1000 workers, and that they are good hunters. I would love to get some of these. i have two colonys of Lasius niger. thanks

[Phasmid]

They can be seen all over sunny hillsides and can easily be found under logs in forest clearings.

[aka ant]

They can also be found in the north east US and maybe Canada. I believe they are imported.

[Zagone]

I've got two colonies of Myrmica rubra near where I live. One is in an old log, which is completely soaked all year around and the bark is just about coming off. I've found this to be a common characteristic of Myrmica favored trees. The other nest was found under the bark of an old birch tree. I've never myself seen them nest in the ground but often heared that they do. It's fairly easy to find them on sunny days because as soon as you get within 40-50 meters of a nest you'll notice alot of them running around on the ground (if the ground allows it, mostly only noticable if there's a path nearby or so; that's how I found the first nest.)

But what I wanted to get to is if you see a larger log or fallen tree that's starting to decompose abit and is very moist with the bark starting to come off, you're likely to find ants in them, and I'd say if they're very damp, Myrmica rubra is the most likely. Atleast as far as I know Carpenter ants favor trees with abit less moisture.

[tail__]

Myrmica need a bit less heat than other European ants, so they dominate in shady leaf forests where species like Lasius or Formica can't grow as fast. Many nests can be found under the heaps of old leaves. Moist, rotting wood pieces are also a good nest material for them. They can be also found in nearly any environment, but in sunny areas they aren't so numerous, facing strong competition of other species, especially Lasius.

[Phasmid]

but in sunny areas they aren't so numerous, facing strong competition of other species, especially Lasius.

Lol, where I live (South-downs in East-Sussex) they are every where sunny, more common than Lasius or Formica, sit down any where on a sunny, grassy hillside and they will be crawling up you . But in forests I find the biggest colonies M. rubra, and massive colonies of Formica fusca and Lasius niger living metres from them, there is alot of prey to go around in the forests though .