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Photo#301871
Odorous House Ant - Tapinoma sessile

Odorous House Ant - Tapinoma sessile
Ackworth, Warren County, Iowa, USA
July 10, 2009
Size: ~3 mm
Dozens of tiny black ants sometimes show up on my kitchen countertop, particularly when I am not prompt in cleaning up after meals. They are especially drawn to sweet items such as the sugary lid of the honey jar. I captured one and chilled it for photography with a small microscope camera, managing to capture one sharp photo of its ventral side (while it was still immobile), then one blurry photo of its dorsal side just after it recovered and was preening. (It then ran, climbing into the interior of the microscope camera and ending my photography session for now!)

Ventral view.

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Odorous House Ant - Tapinoma sessile Odorous House Ant - Tapinoma sessile

Odorous house ants
a.k.a. Tapinoma sessile.

They're in my house, too, and those of many others I know, apparently favored by recent weather patterns or other environmental features in the Midwest.

The odor is released when they are injured or crushed, from glands in the abdomen, and in smaller amounts by alarmed but otherwise undamaged individual ants when the nest is disturbed.

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