kade_0721 的最愛

Alate female on ground after rain previous night. Two workers were found nearby. Habitat consists of Populus tremuloides and Pseudotsuga forested area.
Species ID is based on presence of ventral spine pocess on post petiole.

Pogonomyrmex occidentalis x maricopa hybrid imaged at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum at a during a recent visit. I forgot to collect more percise locality and date data, next time I visit I will image the specimen label.

I'm not really a Pheidole person-I just don't appreciate them much-but these ants, they were really something. way cooler than the Pheidologetons of Asia in my opinion. Many regrets in these photos would like to try a second some day

So... these ants. did not expect the first ants to see in the middle east to be Iridomyrmex*es.
Regarding the *"invasive" I. anceps records outside of Australia, specimens from Indomalayan regions turned out to be separate native lineages while New Zealand populations were later reidentified to be suchieri. Now only a handfull of localities are left with introduced anceps records, and the Iridomyrmex I've found in Dubai were keyed out to be suchieri and I personally think all other records could also actually be not anceps

They seemed to be enjoying the similar warm dry weather, with no other dolichoderin to compete. Picture qualities suck as I wasn't really patient enough to wait for good shots and cropped out from far focused pictures.