3-Step Tutorial] What kind of ants are these? How to identify ants? The Most Detailed Diagram of Identification Procedure

Read it and gain new knowledge.

After reading this article, you will learn how to recognize unfamiliar ants. The article will give you an in-depth introduction with a lot of pictures to ensure that you will understand at once!  

First things first.

The same type of ants will have specific common characteristics, which are organized by scholars to become a classification of ants.retrieval table".

When we observe the ants, we use the "Search List" to eliminate other options step by step to find the correct classification.    

Essential Knowledge

There are 3 stages to classify the ants, and the results of each stage will help us to narrow down the possible ant species, of course, each stage requires a microscope (or you can use your fire-eye).

The basic biological classifications, ranging from broad to precise, are: Kingdom>Department>Organism>Order>Family>Genera>Species

Since there are too many ants, the family "Antidae" is no longer sufficient to categorize them. Therefore, there are subfamilies of ants, e.g. subfamily Mountain ants, subfamily Household ants and so on.

If we analyze the common sweet giant mountain ant, his classification becomes: Animal.kingdom (taxonomy)>Arthropodsdoorway>Insectsoutline>Membrane wingsorder (taxonomy)>termiteslevy (taxes etc)>TermitesArco>Giant Mountain Antsbelong to>SweetGiant mountain ants.

Field Exercise

Now that we know that the insect in our hands is an ant, there is only one thing left.Subfamily, Genus, SpeciesThese three classifications are unknown to us, and the "retrieval table"is an important tool to help us figure out ant classification step by step.

The use of the search form is somewhat similar to a psychometric test in that it starts with question 1 (narrative), moves to question 2 if it matches description A, and to question 3 if it matches description B. This is repeated several times, and the final result is the categorization result.  

This is still very vague, so let's take the Sweet Giant Mountain Ant as an example and do a real search!

Yako's Search

  2. a distinct lumbar joint (girdle joint) between the mid-torso and the hammers; complete healing between the first and second segments of the hammers or a banded cord - 3

- Two distinct girdle joints (ventral and posteroventral) between the midbody and the hammers; the shape of the girdle joints is completely different from that of the segments of the hammers -- 8  

By comparison, we find that Sweet has only one girdle joint (abdominal stalk joint), which matches the description in Question 1 of this question, so we skip to Question 3.  

3. Degradation of the sting at the end of the abdominal hammer-- 4

- The sting at the end of the hammer is pronounced - 5  

All the ant species that fit the description in the previous question will follow this question, e.g., termites and mountain ants with only one abdominal segment.

  Sweetness matches Narrative 1, so skip to Question 4  

4. Ventral peduncle segments scaly; ventral hammer terminated by half-circular or rounded acid gland pores, often protruding tubularly, bearing bristles (4a)-- Formicinae

- Abdominal stalk nodes tubular; abdominal hammers without tubular acid gland pores at the end, with slit openings (4aa) -- Dolichoderinae 琉璃蟻亚科

 

Up to this point, we have found that sweetness fits the narrative of the butt having acid gland pores, and is therefore identified as theFormicinaeWe then narrowed it down to all the features in the subfamily of bactrian ants until we were able to confirm the results.belong toThe    

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Retrieval of Properties

The description just given are all common features of the members of the family Bryoniaceae, and then the more subtle variations have to be differentiated.  

1. Touch corners 9-11 nodes -- 2

- Contact angle 12 knots-- 5

5. Contact horn socket near posterior edge of head tatara (cly) (5a) -- 6

- Contact horn socket remote from head tatting (cly) posterior margin (5aa) --- 10

10. Dorsal plate of the first abdominal hammer segment large, more than half the size of the hammer when viewed dorsally or laterally; spines or teeth on the mesosoma or ventral peduncle segment -- Polyrhachis spiny mountain ant

- Ventral hammer with small dorsal plate in first segment, not more than half the length of the hammer when viewed dorsally or laterally; no spines or teeth in midbody or ventral shank segments ---. 11

  11. The antennal nests were located at the center of the frontal ridge; the foreleg joints of the worker ant subclass were obviously enlarged, and the front edges of the soldier ant subclass were obviously straight-cut and flattened when viewed in the lateral view of the female's head. Colobopsis

- The antennal nests are located in front of the midline of the frontal ridge; the foreleg joints of the worker ant subclass are not enlarged, and the antennae of the soldier ant subclass are not flattened when viewed from the side of the female's head. Camponotus

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Search of the Seed

Finally, the answer is giant mountain ants!

After all the hard work, we have finally confirmed that the yellow ants in our hands are from the subfamily of "Mountain Ants", "Giant Mountain Ants", and now that we know about the Giant Mountain Ants, it's a good thing that there are only a few candidates left.

It's not too late. Let's get started!  

But we don't have any "species" list (not for Taiwan ants), so how can we determine the species?

Hey, that's just a matter of finding the characteristics described in the original literature!  

Let's see, sweet giant mountain ants type description of the original ......

That's strange. Why can't I find it?

The Sweet Giant Mountain Ant was described in 1889 and officially published in 1893, which is more than a hundred years ago!  

It is actually described in Yiddish!

It's so hard to identify the ants!

 

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Conclusion

    By taking you through a complete search list in this way, we can also understand that ant identification is not something that can be accomplished simply by scanning over the ants with your eyes or by looking at their shapes and colors. Ant classification is a professional and rigorous study, and it is actually not as simple as one may think.    

Identify the ant order

Words from the heart of the author

I spent a lot of time and effort to learn how to take photos of ants, and spent more time in practicing. Almost 99% of the photos in this article and on this website are taken by myself, from photos to ants book, as long as it can help you who are passionate about ants, and make you feel comforted, amazed, and touched by what you see, it's all worth it.  

As an ant lover (and owner of a pet ant specialty store), my love for ants is never-ending. There are many sleepless nights when I forget to sleep because I am so happy to read an article on ants.

I would be very happy to see a clear and good quality photo of ants, but there are not many related resources in Taiwan.

Take myself as an example, it may take me 5 to 10 hours to identify an unfamiliar ant species, many of which are not clearly photographed (or even hand-drawn in some cases), either I cannot see it clearly or the angle is not right, which is a very painful experience for me.  

I can't find any high definition, clear and good looking ants photos, so why don't I just take my own?

Since I am so happy when I see photos of ants, I am sure there are people who love ants as much as I do, so I have to share my happiness with you, and that is the reason why I made the Taiwan Ant Book.

      Hopefully this article will help other citizen scientists and attract more people to the cause.  

This post took me 5 hours to conceptualize, 2 hours to select materials, 6 hours to make drawings, 2 hours to write, 5 years to collect materials and 0.59% lumbar spine durability, if you like this post, you can leave a comment to let me know or share it with more people, which will be a great encouragement to me.  

Self-identification

Want to try it out for yourself and see what you think?

Here's the web search form I created, play around with it!

( The information used is from 2003, which is slightly outdated, but still has a certain degree of accuracy )

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References

• Original URL of the search form ( Ministry of Science and Technology Grant Program )
• Biological Journal of Taiwan: Ant phases of Taiwan (Hymenoptera_Antidae) with a list of subfamilies (Lin, Zongqi et al. , 2021)
• Formiche di Birmania e del Tenasserim raccolte da Leonardo Fea (Emery, 1889)
• Catalogus Hymenopterorum hucusque descriptorum systematicus et synonymicus. (Dalla Torre, K. W. von., 1893)
• Hymenoptera. fam. formicidae. subfam. formicinae ( Emery , 1925 )
• Phase of Taiwan Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) - with a list of subfamilies and genera ( LIN Zongqi, 2003 )

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This site tries its best to check the accuracy of the information, but there may be inaccuracies or the information is not updated immediately, please bear with us, and you are welcome to write to us to correct any errors.

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