Caught a local TV news segment about ants today. Apparently, 'pavement ants' (presumably Tetramorium caespitum) have turned up in
some Halifax homeowners' backyards and are stinging people and causing problems. The species was reported to be new to the area, an exotic that had likely
been accidently introduced from the southeastern States--true enough in any case--but I'm really wondering about that ID, based on the following:
--few seconds' worth of footage of the actual ants were all of red-orange, fast-moving insects...lifting up a stone exposed a veritable 'boil' of ants, always moving too fast for me to make out any details aside from the colour
--homeowners complained that they stung badly enough to cause swelling and were so aggressive that people couldn't use their back yards...a pest control guy taking part in the segment claimed that he'd been stung on the finger and that it felt like a hornet sting
--not entirely sure of this, but it sounded like the ants were mainly living in the gardens and, in one case, at somebody's cottage
Now, I have no first-hand experience with pavement ants, but does this really sound like pavement ant behaviour to those of you who do know them? I always thought that they were reasonably mild ants which only stung when actively disturbed, also that they were dark-coloured and not all that cold-tolerant, ergo had to live near buildings where they could shelter during the winter. Is it possible that we have Myrmica rubra instead, and is that a species which could be confused with Tetramorium caespitum fairly easily? Don't know right now if the pavement ant ID was done by the local museum zoologists or if they ran it past a myrmecologist... Maybe I should call to find out--?
Whatever they are, they're ants that are new to the region! Time to update my species list!
--few seconds' worth of footage of the actual ants were all of red-orange, fast-moving insects...lifting up a stone exposed a veritable 'boil' of ants, always moving too fast for me to make out any details aside from the colour
--homeowners complained that they stung badly enough to cause swelling and were so aggressive that people couldn't use their back yards...a pest control guy taking part in the segment claimed that he'd been stung on the finger and that it felt like a hornet sting
--not entirely sure of this, but it sounded like the ants were mainly living in the gardens and, in one case, at somebody's cottage
Now, I have no first-hand experience with pavement ants, but does this really sound like pavement ant behaviour to those of you who do know them? I always thought that they were reasonably mild ants which only stung when actively disturbed, also that they were dark-coloured and not all that cold-tolerant, ergo had to live near buildings where they could shelter during the winter. Is it possible that we have Myrmica rubra instead, and is that a species which could be confused with Tetramorium caespitum fairly easily? Don't know right now if the pavement ant ID was done by the local museum zoologists or if they ran it past a myrmecologist... Maybe I should call to find out--?
Whatever they are, they're ants that are new to the region! Time to update my species list!
...)
Thanks Biddybot.
