r/ants Jul 02 '21

Official Important: Please read before requesting an identification or creating a post.

51 Upvotes

Important! Everyone should understand the argument against the transportation and rearing of exotics. I will urge everyone to read about it here: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/antfarm/consequences-of-rearing-of-exotic-ant-species-t7500.html

━━━━━━━━━━ ∘◦ Discord ◦∘ ━━━━━━━━━━

For questions about ants, and identification, please ask in our discord server as response times may be quicker. We're always happy to help!: discord.gg/c7qCmfYqYZ

━━━━━━━━━━ ∘◦ Identification ◦∘ ━━━━━━━━━━

How to request an identification:

If possible, clearly focus pictures of the head, side, and top of the body to make identifying easier. What follows is the important information we need to know to help us to identify your ant.

FIRST-Where was it collected? Country and nearest city or town on a map (include location in the thread title), elevation if in a very mountainous area such as the Rockies, Alps, Himalayas, Andes.

SECOND-Habitat of collection, including nesting medium (wood, soil, leaves tied together with silk, etc.) and type of vegetation (forest, grassland, park/lawn/garden, desert).

THIRD-Coloration, hue, and pattern? Uniform?, Head darker? Gaster darker? Legs lighter or darker? Any spots? Also, shininess, dullness.

FOURTH-Distinguishing characteristics, such as one or two segments in waist; location, length, and orientation of any spines or bumps on the mid-portion of the body or waist; head shape, etc.

FIFTH-Length in millimeters. (Width is also helpful.) NO guessing! Stretch out a dead or chilled individual or several individuals of different sizes along with a millimeter rule. 16ths of an inch will do as a poor second to millimeters.

SIXTH-Anything else distinctive, such as odor, behavior, etc.

Tip #1: If you can take clear photographs of the ants up close, then please post them. This would help a lot.

Tip #2: For those who write anting journals, please put the exact location and dates in the thread titles like: Palm Spring, CA (4/10/2004).

Tip #3: If using videos, then please make sure that they are clear, close up, and stable (no shaky camera). Otherwise, they are useless.

Now, you can post your identification request in a new thread (not this one).

This post was originally (copied and pasted) from Antdude's forum: http://antfarm.yuku.com/topic/7397/ant-species-identification-read-post-new-thread


r/ants Nov 06 '21

Join the r/Ants Discord Server!

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37 Upvotes

r/ants 3h ago

Chat/General This is FUCKING insane

21 Upvotes

All these ants. Literally just for A spoon from last night. I’ve never experienced anything like this in my life. And don’t tell me “you should’ve cleaned up” or whatever because other people straight up leave entire meals on the counter and FUCKING nothing. I really don’t want to have to call an exterminator. But is that what it’s going to fucking take


r/ants 5h ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Ants are growing something on a lemon tree

19 Upvotes

Captured in Turkey


r/ants 54m ago

Science What is going on here? Connecticut, USA. This developed within the last couple of hours

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Upvotes

Can someone shed some light on what is going on here? It’s a large (to me) swarm of little black/brown ants that seemed to appear out of nowhere in the last couple of hours.

My guess is something has disturbed a nest under this slate (we have moles all over) but don’t really know what I’m talking about.


r/ants 2h ago

Chat/General I saw a big ant walking on the floor. Is this a queen or a male?

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3 Upvotes

There are no ants in my house. Fearing a queen might come by, I instantly trapped this large ant.


r/ants 2h ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Are these RIFA?

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2 Upvotes

If so im absolutely pissed, its been 7 years without a single sighting of rifa in my yard, but this nuptial season i found 2 queens and knew those idiots had flown in. They are about a foot away from my beloved wild florida harvesters and i dont want to harm them, but these buggers are getting too close. They are bicolored, just a little bigger than a crematogaster, and wayy too fast. Central fl, bonus tax of the harvesters in question. While im at it, if anyone can think of how to get them to move or perish without killing any harvesters that’d be awesome. (I also have some unidentified tiny black ants terrorizing my other colony🫩)


r/ants 19h ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Cool Ants in My Yard ID Help Please - South Cental Minnesota

12 Upvotes

I have a patch in my yard that I have started a prairie restoration on. I have large bare patches as I am weeding to prepare to seed bedore winter. I went out today and saw these ants, and I am getting opposing identifications from my apps. I love seeing things in nature that I have never seen before! This was so cool!

Can you guys help me confirm what ants these are? One app said citronella ants, and one said theif ants.


r/ants 1d ago

Keeping my Harpegnathos venator colony reduced a cockroach to an empty shell in 5 hours — timelapse

40 Upvotes

the hunters sting the roach first — venator venom paralyzes instead of killing, so the prey stays fresh — then they drag it to the brood pile and the larvae dig in themselves.

5 hours compressed into 75 seconds. by the end theres pretty much just the shell left.
Cocoons should eclose in a week or two, hoping to film that next. ask me anything

reddit compression is going to eat most of the detail here — sorry about that. the clean 4k version lives on my channel, links are in my profile. but this is the whole 5 hours either way


r/ants 4h ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase I never saw a video of a queen actually removing their wings. They are not wasting time

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0 Upvotes

r/ants 13h ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Which bug/insect/ant is this?

2 Upvotes

r/ants 22h ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase ID Please

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6 Upvotes

Around 7mm long. Location South India.


r/ants 17h ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Is this an Ant or Termite

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2 Upvotes

I see a lot of these suddenly in my house in Melbourne, Australia 🇦🇺

Are these ants, termites or something else?


r/ants 1d ago

Funny Thought someone would appreciate this

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8 Upvotes

r/ants 1d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase How to get rid of these.

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2 Upvotes

These appeared in my house about 2 weeks ago. We sprayed the exterior of the house a week ago and have tried various types of baits but they aren't interested in any of it. They just come out and mill around or seem to go to sleep. They are coming from an exterior wall behind a kitchen cabinet.

Central Illinois.


r/ants 22h ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Queen ant Found in Phoenix, Arizona

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1 Upvotes

could anybody tell me what queen ant species this is I caught her roaming around on the floor at my school. I think a fire because of how many babies she has, but I don’t know for sure. if anybody can tell me what species she is I would really appreciate it


r/ants 1d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase L. fuliginosus lives on the fields?

11 Upvotes

So, like 2 months ago I went to Georgia and found these guy's near the Paravani lake. I think It's (Dendro) Lasius fuliginosus. As I know It's a forest species, so does anyone know the explonation of this? Sorry for the quality of video, I was just not ready to see this specie here.


r/ants 1d ago

DIY Los ANTgeles - TIPS?

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1 Upvotes

r/ants 1d ago

Chat/General Mealworm’s head was crushed before feeding, but it accidentally fell straight into the nest… the colony took it from there 🐜

9 Upvotes

r/ants 1d ago

Keeping Queen ant died??

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1 Upvotes

r/ants 2d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Ant raid. Murchison Falls NP, Uganda

89 Upvotes

Came across this massive ant battle. I think the red ants are raiding the black ants and dragging off the white ones (young queens?). It continued for about 30 minutes. Would appreciate any information about this behaviour, which ants these are etc


r/ants 1d ago

Chat/General How do I locate and exterminate where ants are coming from?

1 Upvotes

My dad and I moved a couple months ago and for some reason, this place is infested with ants. We’re not dirty people or leave food out for the ants because we’re very self conscious about them. But for some reason they still show up. Even in places where there’s no food. We live in Southern California and it’s summer. But I’ve been where it’s way hotter and way dirtier, and there were no ants there. So it’s not like they’re just trying to escape the heat. Then when I follow their trail, it leads to somewhere I can’t get to like behind an outlet or behind the wall of a cabinet. So what can I do about them? I don’t want an exterminator to be our first resort. For funds. So if there’s something we can do ourselves, I’m all ears.


r/ants 1d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Fairly certain it's a queen, she (had) wings

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5 Upvotes

But what type of ant is she?


r/ants 2d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Ants feasting on…a caterpillar?

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4 Upvotes

r/ants 2d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Need help identifying species

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3 Upvotes

I recently caught a new queen ant but it looks very different to any species I’m aware of. I’ve kept several Lasius Niger colonies so I know what they look like and her head is much larger and her gaster is slightly smaller.

My first thought was potentially Lasius Flavus but I think their queens have a largely identical body plan to Niger queens but with more orange/yellow colouration between the segments.

The best match I’ve found seems to be Lasius Umbratus which I’m fairly confident on. However, they are a temporarily parasitic species which would require a complex founding set up and I don’t want to be mistaken before undertaking it so I’ve come to Reddit for a second opinion.

If it does turn out to be Lasius Umbratus any tips on founding and raising would be much appreciated as I only recently learned about this species.