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Many ant pictures if your interested. (DUW)

Ant

Your one and only pest!
So, Saturday was bright, sunny, in the 70's and there was no wind around so I just had to visit my favorite anting spot. I was hoping to find some tadpoles to take pictures of but had no luck. So I spent the next 3 hours trying (very unsuccessfully at first) to take pictures of the plentiful and active Formica colonies and a few other odd balls I found at the end of my search. I can tell you that Formica are a nightmare to try and take pictures of. I spent nearly 45 minutes outside a nest before they finally got use to my breathe an the tremors in my hand from holding the camera slightly off the ground.

First, some F. pallidefulva. Some of these were simply colonies I found and some were of slaves to a Polyergus colony.
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I believe these were taken from the Polyergus (slave maker ant) colonies. I think that the larger workers with almost entirely black gasters are F. incerta taken from a colony nearby the Polyergus and are currently make up the minority of the colony.
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These pictures are of a Polyergus worker I found wandering outside of the nest and was not very photogenic. (I filled my 4gb memory card trying to get good pictures of it.)
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Now for some social carrying pictures from F. incerta (?) I found moving their nest to under a large tree root.
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Now for some of the random ants I found.
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Lol, sorry if you don't know what most of the names are. I simply copied and pasted it here. Feel free to ask questions.
 
Lol, couldn't fit the last pic into the post, darn 25 pic limit! :p

Here is an F. subsericea I took in my front yard a week or two ago eating some insect I don't know the name of.
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Neat shots!
What kind of camera lets you take pictures of ants? Mine couldn't do that, even though it has "macro" settings. :(
 
Ah Yes!
Ant-wrestling!
I have heard about them but never saw one in person!
It is illegal in this part of the country, along with dog fighting!
But apparently it is still done in some places! :slap:

I haven't seen anything like it since the flea circus left town a few years back! :-))

BTW: GREAT ant photos!
Er, uh... GREAT photos, Ant! :clap:
FANTASTIC!
(Gotta be a nice Camera!)
(Makes me miss my old 35mm Cannon!)
 
Great shots!

What type of lens are your using?
 
I took the pictures on my Canon Xsi digital rebel. The lens is a AF28-80mm F/3.5-5.6 (if that is who you name them) from tamron. I added 58mm macro filters to it as well. I want to try flipping the lens around as it might provide better picture magnification like it did when I simply held the lens backwards.
 
Yeah, great shots! Looks like they could use a day off.
 
Ants are cool as long as they stay outside of my house.
Looks like these ants are moving their colony or something, any idea what species these are?

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VERY VERY Cool close ups there!

I can see the "whites of his eyes"! (In other words, love the photo!)
Nice shootin'!
 
  • #10
insane how your cameras get so close...almost creepy..
 
  • #11
Awesome pictures Larry! What are you using to get such good close-ups?

I believe your ant is Linepithema humile, which is a terribly invasive species and is sadly causing great harm to the ecosystems. The biggest reason why these ants are so terribly invasive is because of how genetically similar the entire population is. They are so similar that they form "super colonies" that cover vast areas of land all with the same colony scent. (there use to be only 1 super colony in the u.s. but, recently super colonies have begun to break apart into more then one colony. (that is a good thing.)
 
  • #12
Any body got some Lasius Niger and Anoplolepis gracilipes?
 
  • #13
What do you mean? Lasius niger is not native to the eastern U.S. (where I live) and isn't Anoplolepis gracilipes are an asain ant species? I do have similar species native here called Lasius neoniger.
 
  • #14
We have lasius Niger here. (IL)
 
  • #15
No, you do not. Lasius niger only lives on the West coast of the U.S. and Quebec. What you have is either L. alienus, neoniger, crypticus, or pallitarsis.
 
  • #16
Ant - those are some great pictures. Well done.

xvart.
 
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