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Photo#286587
Ants - Lasius interjectus - female

Ants - Lasius interjectus - Female
Camden County, New Jersey, USA
June 10, 2009
Wing pattern

Images of this individual: tag all
Ants - Lasius interjectus - female Ants - Lasius interjectus - male Ants - Lasius interjectus - female Ants - Lasius interjectus - female Ants - Lasius interjectus - male - female

Nice photos!
Just a note that "linked" photos should normally be of the same individual bug, so you should probably unlink these at some point.. If you'd like, you can instead add a "thumbnail" of the other ants to one of the images in order to keep them together in some way.

 
...
Hey Ken. Yes, I do know that linked images should be of a single individual. However, since these individuals emerged together as part of a communal group, I figured it may help with an ID if I included them together. I would be interested in hearing an administrators opinion on linking images in these circumstances though...

 
Question
Help page says "Only images of the same specimen or group of specimens should be linked together." But what is a group?

Did you see them all coming out of the same hole, or were they just in the same area? For instance a bee hive or ant hill would make sense to link together, major workers, minor workers, queen, pupae, etc. Sometimes you see people link "these bees were all at my flowers so they are a group" or "these moths were all at my light so they are a group", but they don't really belong linked. It really comes down to if the insects "think" they are a group (hive, colony, mating pair, or even recently hatched nymphs), or if just the photographer thinks they are a group because they were in the same area.

My personal opinion is they probably were a group so linking is probably OK, but using thumbs instead of linking would be "belt and suspenders" safe.

 
Group -
I agree that this might be a "group", but this tends to run into issues for a perfectionist like me. :) For one thing, I'm not an expert, but I believe that ant colonies can sometimes be a mixture of slave and non-slave species - so ants coming out of a colony don't always have to be the same type. I trust the ID given below, but linking the images also casts a little doubt as to whether our expert was looking carefully at all four images and ID'ing them as a group, or perhaps was just ID'ing this one image? It would be great if MrILovetheAnts would comment one more time? :)

 
Parasitic Ants
Identifying male ants is a lot harder to do than with queens or workers. It's perfectly fine to picture both together as long as it's stated. In the scenario of slave maker and slave, the parasites NEVER allow the host colony to produce alates. When such brood is raided accidentally they are killed.

As for the incredibly rare inquiline parasite relationship, where two functioning colonies with fertile queens are in the same nest but still one is a parasite, the parasite queens are usually riding on top of the host queens as they take off.

Lasius interjectus, which I believe is the ant here, is a social parasite itself, but the host queen died long ago as did her workers. These are not slave making ants, they just require a host colony to start.

 
Thanks!
Thanks for all of this detailed and helpful information. Sounds like it's safe to keep all of these images linked and move them to at least genus (or species) page.

 
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To be honest, the hole from which they emerged was obscured by a small bush (maybe 1 foot cubed). However, it would seem very unusual to me that two distinct ant colonies would mature and emerge separately yet in the same exact location at the same exact time, while completely tolerating each others presence. They were climbing on top of and over each other in what appeared to be an effort to reach the top of the bush to take flight. (I am adding another photo to illustrate this)

I guess until we get an expert opinion/clarification, this may remain a mystery.

 
Lasius
I believe this is Lasius interjectus.

 
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Moved to Lasius interjectus. Thanks for the help!

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