[Conf] Ant: Lasius flavus?

[Jason Green]

Afternoon all,

Having been quite overcast here up until this afternoon, I had found very few inverts all day. One insect that made up for the morning was this ant. I collected it in my specimen jar and after it settled down a little I was able to photograph this rather willing individual from multiple angles - an insect I only had one photo of before! You know the story, the insect is so common you over-look it, then when you come to need a photo of one you've never taken many good ones of it! Here are my best shots:

02/04/2010

Dorsal, two lateral and a head-on image
Body length: 4mm

Am I correct in thinking this is L. flavus the Meadow Ant, or are there other similar ones?

Thanks for looking

Take care,

Jason

[JRsbugs]

No expert on ants here Jason, but it does look like one I found last year and I have named it Lasius flavus.

I didn't know I had them , and I don't know how common they are but they must be very secretive. Mine appeared when the grass turfs were cut off when starting to dig the pond last year in July. A couple were dead, others worked on burying the few eggs and the huge queen cocoon which were unearthed. The soil was placed with grass roots holding it together under the Oak tree so hopefully they survived the move.

Janet

[Jason Green]

Thanks Janet

Originally Posted by JRsbugs

I didn't know I had them , and I don't know how common they are but they must be very secretive.

They're very common, just less obtrusive than other common ones such as Lasius niger and Myrmica sp.

[Fauna]

Originally Posted by Jason Green

Afternoon all,

Having been quite overcast here up until this afternoon, I had found very few inverts all day. One insect that made up for the morning was this ant. I collected it in my specimen jar and after it settled down a little I was able to photograph this rather willing individual from multiple angles - an insect I only had one photo of before! You know the story, the insect is so common you over-look it, then when you come to need a photo of one you've never taken many good ones of it! Here are my best shots:

02/04/2010

Dorsal, two lateral and a head-on image
Body length: 4mm

Am I correct in thinking this is L. flavus the Meadow Ant, or are there other similar ones?

Thanks for looking

Take care,

Jason

Hi Jason,

Not to sure if this is L.flavus, the mandibles look like they have to many teeth and it seems to lack the prominent large apical tooth?

L.umbratus could be another choice (there is apparently two others that look similar to this species, they are L.sabularum and L.meridionalis. Don't know where these occur an how common.)

L.mixtus could also be another choice...hope this helps.

Though i could be totally wrong for all of the above

[Jason Green]

Thanks Chris. The thing that struck me was how it had it's mandibles keep opening all the time - it seemed 'angrier' and potentially more aggressive than flavus does.Also in another photograph the dorsal surface of the thorax looks different. At the time I put this down to just having better-magnified photos than I'd taken before. I must say, I hadn't looked at it too scientifically or analysed key points - the 'jiz' just seemed questionable.

Here's that photo I mentioned:

02/04/2010

Rear-dorsal

Oh, and thanks for the other other species' names - I was unaware of other orange ones. Is there a field guide to these that you know of?

[Fauna]

I have and rarely use...Ants by GJ Skinner and GW Allen. With this try to compare them with the species found on Genus: Lasius - AntWeb. Though, be carefull with this as i don't think any of the specimens are from Britain, so there might be regional variations...if you know what i mean?

Also there are various pdf keys hanging around the net like this http://antbase.org/ants/publications/11307/11307.pdf. Though some of these seem to be a bit out dated.

I have tried a few times with ants, but i seem to lose interest in them fairly quickly, don't know why as they are a very intresting group.

Good luck

[Jason Green]

Thanks Chris!

Oh, and I know what you mean now about the large apical tooth - it's the largest one on the outer-most edge of the mandible. As mine doesn't have this, I suppose it isn't flavus but must be either umbratus, sabularum, meridianalis or mixtus. I suppose this is why collecting specimens is a good idea, so you can be surer about IDs by spending more time with the voucher under the microscope.

[JRsbugs]

One wouldn't think there was so many yellow ants in this country, it just shows how careful you have to be.

I think I checked out those pics on Antweb, I took some pics of a dead one inside which I think shows a large tooth but that was last year and it's easy to forget.

This is another site with keys to Ants in Britain..

http://www.antnest.co.uk/types.pdf

I can't remember if I put mine up for ID, seemed nobody was around that knew much about ants before, so I should put them up again if you are around to take a look Fauna.

[Jason Green]

Hi all,

I have been working my way through those Lasius species that Chris pointed out in post #4. I focused on the mandibles and teeth, paying particular interest to the apical tooth/number of teeth.

Flavus: Apical tooth too big, as Chris pointed out. In fact - of all of these it has the biggest one!

Meridionalis: It doesn't appear to have enough teeth, and the apical is too big - appears twice the size of the others, which appear to be too small in comparison to my specimen.

Umbratus: Appears to have six.

Sabularum: Too few teeth. My specimen has eight and this one has just five.

Mixtus: A real possibility... it also has eight when compared to a pinned specimen on AntWeb. The apical seems only vaguely bigger, too. Still, the numbers add up! Additionally it seems to have the correct rear-end to the thorax - it appears to be the widest of these species here. The setae on the top surface of the body appears more localised in positioning as well - correct for my specimen.

So to sumarise - I think my ant is Lasius mixtus, though I'd like to have a better set of images of my specimen. Still, I know where it lives...

Wow, and to think in the past I've taken a dorsal image of a yellow ant and just called it Lasius flavus without a closer look. Oh, the embarrassment of it all...

I might pass on my findings to an Ant expert, just to confirm.

Well, I need a lie-down...