During a recent foray into helping someone gather firewood, I found some interesting ants that live in less-than-sound wood.
Take these acrobat ants, Genus Crematogaster.
Nice spines on the propodeum!
Carpenter Ants Under Glass
Some recent shots from my travels:
First of all, for the person who asked about the red spots in their ant farm. Do the spots look anything like the red dot on the middle leg on the left side of this photograph? That is a mite.
The ant is a winged Camponotus pennsylvanicus “princess.”
I don’t usually manipulate the ants I photograph, but these were in a log that had been split for firewood, so I thought I’d play around with holding them in and under glass.
Camponotus pennsylvanicus ants are more cooperative than most.
I kind of like the results.
What do you think?
Wordless Wednesday: Fall Harvest
Any idea what made this bare spot in the grass?
There’s a clue.
A bigger clue.
Notice the stick? The photographs are in order.
Going…
Going…
Gone.
Ant of the Week: Pogonomyrmex desertorum
Continuing on a quest to learn to identify the Pogonomyrmex, I found a nest of the desert harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex desertorum.
Character number 1: They are a bit smaller than most harvesters, workers roughly 6mm in length.
According to Cole, the P. desertorum in the western regions have more ridges (rugae) on the head and pronotal area (mesosoma) than those farther east, but in general they have fine rugae and are quite shiny or have a “silky luster.” I would say they are pretty difficult to distinguish from Pogonomyrmex barbatus, although they do have finer rugae.
These had a simple nest opening, with none of the scattering of pebbles you see with many harvesters.
The workers were forging singly, apparently large on plant material.
According to Pogonomyrmex guru Pogolumina, Pogonomyrmex desertorum colonies are usually quite small, around 500 workers.
One claim to fame for desert harvester ants is that they are prey for horned lizards. As horned lizard numbers are on the decline, that might make these little guys pretty important.
According to Antweb, the 15 species of Pogonomyrmex in Arizona are:
Species:
- Pogonomyrmex anergismus
- Pogonomyrmex apache
- Pogonomyrmex barbatus
- Pogonomyrmex bicolor
- Pogonomyrmex californicus
- Pogonomyrmex (occidentalis-group) colei
- Pogonomyrmex desertorum
- Pogonomyrmex hoelldobleri
- Pogonomyrmex huachucanus
- Pogonomyrmex (Ephebomyrmex) imberbiculus
- Pogonomyrmex (californicus-group) magnacanthus
- Pogonomyrmex maricopa
- Pogonomyrmex occidentalis
- Pogonomyrmex pima
- Pogonomyrmex rugosus
I have a ways to go…