ANTSTORE World of Ants

[thecowmaster]

I think this one is Messor barbarus, not sure at all

And i think these ara Lasius niger

Well...the pictures aren't very good, but that is the best my camera can do...

[Messorus]

These ants are all Formicinae or Dolichoderinae... no Messor
The first black ants looks like Tapinoma, no Lasius or Formicinae, the head looks like Dolichoderinae, gaster too, but I´m not an expert... Take a look at hormigas.org or somewhere, on Spain and Portuguese web about ants... I´ve read somewhere, that about 25 Tapinoma species are living on the south of Spain... So it´s possible...

Take a look at: Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar

The last one looks like Linepithema humile

[thecowmaster]

that was unexpected...yeah i will take a look on that

[tail__]

Please give EXACT length in milimeters, when asking for identification. And don't trust your eyes, always have a ruler with you
I also suppose it's Tapinoma. Look very close at the worker's head (preferably dead specimen, unless you are able to convince the worker to stand still - maybe with some sweet bait). If you see the ocelli (three little eyes on forehead), they are Formicinae. They are, however, very hard to spot when the ant is small and coloured black, like Lasius niger, so use strong magnifying glass. Dolichoderinae workers don't have ocelli, only queens and males.

The second ones for sure aren't Lasius. But I have no idea what they might be.

[thecowmaster]

it will be dificult to mesure them XD and tring to see there eyes will be even more difficult XD

next weekend i will work on that

and i will tell you the results

[Messorus]

[quote="tail__"]Please give EXACT length in milimeters, when asking for identification. And don't trust your eyes, always have a ruler with you
I also suppose it's Tapinoma. Look very close at the worker's head (preferably dead specimen, unless you are able to convince the worker to stand still - maybe with some sweet bait). If you see the ocelli (three little eyes on forehead), they are Formicinae. They are, however, very hard to spot when the ant is small and coloured black, like Lasius niger, so use strong magnifying glass. Dolichoderinae workers don't have ocelli, only queens and males.

-I can´t understand this... Ocelli(infra-eyes for searching sun´s aspect and strong of photons) have also Ponerinae ants... For example species of genus Ponera and Diacamma have ocelli...
Formicinae, for example some Camponotus workers don´t have ocelli, I think there´s no specie of Camponotus in central Europe, which´s workers have these smaller eyes.... But Formica hardly have, they need these eyes, cause workers are traveling long ways in the outside area of their colony...

Also their pigmentation and chitin(I mean ,,Tapinoma" on photos) isn´t like L. niger´s, they are more like L. fuliginosus, but just by the way of chitin´s outlook....

[thecowmaster]

they were far away from the nest. I think they were moving...

Because I saw some of them carrying larves.

[tail__]

Yes, of course Ponerinae and other subfamilies also have ocelli, but they look different at all, while Formicinae and Dolichoderinae look very similar. And European Camponotus are usually bigger, but generally you're right, i wasn't exact enough.

[thecowmaster]

in the last summer these ants were much bigger, but i don´t know if they are the same, but i expect they are, because i observe them since there.

But this winter rained a lot, it didn't rained like this since 50 years ago, so it might be possible that the bigger ants died with the water, and the smaller ants were in the bottom of the nest survived.

[thecowmaster]

ok i capture some and messure them


The brown ones

worker- 3 mm

The blacks

Soldier- 8-7 mm
worker- 4-5 mm

the black ones

The Black again

[thecowmaster]

oh...and the blacks only eat seeds

[Messorus]

ok i capture some and messure them


The brown ones

worker- 3 mm

The blacks

Soldier- 8-7 mm
worker- 4-5 mm

Copia de PICT1046.JPG

Copia de PICT1048.JPG

Hello
This is Messor, but hardly no similiar to photos which are showed up... Messor is eating seeds, they love them... Seeds are their head food

[Antlord]

The black ones are definitly Messors probably barbarus but I can't say for sure.

[thecowmaster]

well... there aren't messor barbadus in south europe, rigth?

[thecowmaster]

According to this web site:

Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar

The Messor Barbadus soldiers have there head red, and the soldiers i caugth didn't had the head red

So i looked at the others messor, and they are very similar to Messor capitatus, if they aren't messor capitatus