Finding Queen Ants

I documented a quick example of how to identify a freshly dug Queen cloistral chamber in the wild and to show the digging process with a successful dig!

Species in the video is Myrmecocystud testacius

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Antimidation
• Antscanada
• Ants
• Ant
• Myrmecocystus
• digging
• hiking
• black diamond mines
• insect
• insects
• social insects
• honeypot ant
• hobby
• hobbies
• interesting
• science
• biology

[tekubus]

Cool! I was expecting it to be some huge pulsating freakish monster though.

[Antimidation]

@tekubus What you are describing is a mature termite queen, they are literally stationary blobs full of eggs. Ant queens are very different, while they do have egg laying cycles where their gasters become fecund with eggs and bloated they are still very mobile.

[Antimidation]

@tekubus Or you could be describing the queen ant that was pictured in Phase 4 the movie. The queen in that movie was actually the head of a wasp with the body of a termite queen.

[cvsporn]

im curious, is this a hobby or are you a graduate student?

[Antimidation]

@cvsporn A very large hobby of mine. March is when i start filming out door hikes again. I will be posting more videos of my own colonies though.

[HyozanRegis]

My... I've only seen an actual queen ant atleast once in the summertime. Then again, I've lived on the East Coast for a while.

[MrAndreasaek]

@Antimidation I live in Cyprus (southern Europe).

[Antimidation]

@MrAndreasaek Depends, where do you live? The species you see me dig up in these videos are on the West Coast....mating flights start as early as the end of February.

[MrAndreasaek]

when is the season where she starts digging? pls answer, im interested in keeping ants..

[taylorswiftlover88]

That is awesome

[ujusjealouz]

HOLY SHYT!!!! ITS HUGE!!!