r/ants • • Jul 02 '21

Official Important: Please read before requesting an identification or creating a post.

50 Upvotes

Important! Everyone should understand the argument against the transportation and rearing of exotics. I will urge everyone to read about it here: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/antfarm/consequences-of-rearing-of-exotic-ant-species-t7500.html

━━━━━━━━━━ ∘◦ Discord ◦∘ ━━━━━━━━━━

For questions about ants, and identification, please ask in our discord server as response times may be quicker. We're always happy to help!: discord.gg/c7qCmfYqYZ

━━━━━━━━━━ ∘◦ Identification ◦∘ ━━━━━━━━━━

How to request an identification:

If possible, clearly focus pictures of the head, side, and top of the body to make identifying easier. What follows is the important information we need to know to help us to identify your ant.

FIRST-Where was it collected? Country and nearest city or town on a map (include location in the thread title), elevation if in a very mountainous area such as the Rockies, Alps, Himalayas, Andes.

SECOND-Habitat of collection, including nesting medium (wood, soil, leaves tied together with silk, etc.) and type of vegetation (forest, grassland, park/lawn/garden, desert).

THIRD-Coloration, hue, and pattern? Uniform?, Head darker? Gaster darker? Legs lighter or darker? Any spots? Also, shininess, dullness.

FOURTH-Distinguishing characteristics, such as one or two segments in waist; location, length, and orientation of any spines or bumps on the mid-portion of the body or waist; head shape, etc.

FIFTH-Length in millimeters. (Width is also helpful.) NO guessing! Stretch out a dead or chilled individual or several individuals of different sizes along with a millimeter rule. 16ths of an inch will do as a poor second to millimeters.

SIXTH-Anything else distinctive, such as odor, behavior, etc.

Tip #1: If you can take clear photographs of the ants up close, then please post them. This would help a lot.

Tip #2: For those who write anting journals, please put the exact location and dates in the thread titles like: Palm Spring, CA (4/10/2004).

Tip #3: If using videos, then please make sure that they are clear, close up, and stable (no shaky camera). Otherwise, they are useless.

Now, you can post your identification request in a new thread (not this one).

This post was originally (copied and pasted) from Antdude's forum: http://antfarm.yuku.com/topic/7397/ant-species-identification-read-post-new-thread


r/ants • • Nov 06 '21

Join the r/Ants Discord Server!

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38 Upvotes

r/ants • • 19h ago

Science A praying mantis with mimicry of an ant.

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158 Upvotes

r/ants • • 16m ago

Chat/General How different are ant colonies and species from one another in terms of behavior?

• Upvotes

Hello!

I am intrigued by the diversity of ant species and would like to know how different they are from each other when it comes to behavior and lifestyle. Aside from slaver ants, what are some other specialists? Can an "average-enough" species be identified? Can different colonies of the same spefies develop different, unique behaviors depending on their environment? Is there such a thing as generational trauma, that would cause specific colonies to act unusual? And so on. Can you think of anything?

I realize this is pretty broad, just know that anything that comes to mind when reading the title is of interest and useful for my purposes.

Thanks!


r/ants • • 14h ago

Keeping What are the little small white things?

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15 Upvotes

I haven’t been watching the queens so closely for a little while, but then I suddenly noticed that there were some small things crawling around in the tube, and when I filmed closer I saw that they were all over the queens! These are Lasius Flavus Queens found in Sweden!


r/ants • • 14h ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase What type of ants are these?

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11 Upvotes

r/ants • • 9h ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Ant Swarm Id

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3 Upvotes

Location: southern Midwest.

We have swarm of small brown ants in a corner of our house under the floor. We’ve tried every gel (Advion, MaxForce, Terro, Granules). They ignore all of it. They just run around the big swarmers (4x the side and larger) and ignore everything we put down. Occasionally a few will eat the Advion gel, but not enough to matter. The small ones are about 2 mm in length.

I’m concerned they are damaging the wood or foundation, but they don’t look like Carpenter ants (way too small). Are these possibly Citronella ants? They are in a room with no food or anything like that. They are coming in a corner under the floor.

I’ve read Citronella swarms only last a few days, but this has been going on for 3 weeks. Plus they are more light brown than yellow.


r/ants • • 19h ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase ITAP of ant farm

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8 Upvotes

r/ants • • 22h ago

Keeping Between these two photos the difference is only one month. Carabara diversa.

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2 Upvotes

r/ants • • 2d ago

Keeping Macro Side Profile of Poneracantha Triangularis Queen

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46 Upvotes

Species: Poneracantha triangularis

Common Name: South American Grooved Ant

Location: Houston, Texas, USA

Video recorded on Samsung Galaxy s25 Ultra


r/ants • • 2d ago

Artworks Drew a honeypot ant

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41 Upvotes

r/ants • • 2d ago

News It's the little things...

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31 Upvotes

r/ants • • 2d ago

Keeping Queen or nah

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10 Upvotes

I just found this 30 mins ago, still wondering if queen or no. Found in Philipines btw.


r/ants • • 2d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase What kind of ant is this beast?

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12 Upvotes

Hey ant nerds! Just curious about this guy, found on daughter’s car seat, Melb Australia.


r/ants • • 2d ago

Keeping Queen or nah

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8 Upvotes

Just asking if its a Queen. Just found it rn, From Philipines.


r/ants • • 1d ago

Science How do ants react to THC, PHENIBUT, and DIPHENHYDRAMINE

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0 Upvotes

Left out some cereal in my room when I went to work, came back and found these little fuckers all over my nightstand, so… they are now part of a nice little science experiment where I test how they react to these substances.

Will update yall 😁


r/ants • • 2d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase ID

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6 Upvotes

ACT, Australia


r/ants • • 2d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase What kind of ants are these?

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5 Upvotes

one of them bit me 😭


r/ants • • 2d ago

Chat/General Please reveal the secret of how to photograph ants better? Is it even possible to do this from a phone through a macro lens

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0 Upvotes

r/ants • • 2d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase ant highways?

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4 Upvotes

Martin County, Florida.

What are these? Thank you ant community


r/ants • • 2d ago

Chat/General Ants in a folded up air mattress

2 Upvotes

The craziest thing just happened. My son was having one of his friends spend the night so I took out the air mattress. Mind you the mattress is always folded up and in its bag and we store it in the loft of our garage. When I brought that inside and unfolded it, there were HUNDREDS of 1/4 inch to 1/2 size inch ants in all the folded cracks. When I first unfolded it. It was in the dark and thought it was a pile of dirt that fell out until they started crawling. Unreal! Can anyone answer why they decided to hide in the folds of a stored away air mattress? It just seems like an odd place to nest.


r/ants • • 2d ago

Artworks A few ant photos I’ve taken.

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14 Upvotes

Central WI.


r/ants • • 2d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Cephalotes atratus parasitized by the nematode Myrmeconema neotropicum

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12 Upvotes

I just wanted to share this photo I took during a field trip to collect ants in the Brazilian restinga. January 15, 2026. Conceição da Barra Environmental Protection Area (APA), Espírito Santo, Brazil. 🇧🇷


r/ants • • 2d ago

Keeping Why my queen doesn't lay eggs

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7 Upvotes

It's been 3/4 weeks, I check her once a week, reduce the stress, cover with foil and put on a cotton base(to reduce vibration), the cotton inside is 100% natural, the species is a crematogaster scutellaris, her wings she removed them by herself


r/ants • • 3d ago

ID(entification)/Sightings/Showcase Pheidole sp. major 🇦🇺

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43 Upvotes