While walking through the park yesterday, I happened across a sidewalk boundary dispute between two colonies of Pavement Ants. As is their habit, these little brown ants opted to dispense with diplomacy in favor of all-out warfare.
Incidentally, if I had to pick one thing that annoys me about the purely molecular systematists, it is their tendency to avoid dealing with the taxonomic consequences of their work. A recent paper by Schlick-Steiner et al (2006) gave a detailed picture of the genetic structure within the Tetramorium caespitum species group. Among their results was that the common Pavement Ant, a widespread insect introduced from Eurasia, was definitely not Tetramorium caespitum, the name everyone has used for this insect for a century or so.
But instead of figuring out what latin name should apply to our common Pavement Ant, or even devoting a paragraph to giving it a new valid name, they labelled it an unceremonius “Tetramorium Species E”. So there it is: Species E.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon 20D
ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec, flash diffused through tracing paper
I often come across large congregations of ants on sidewalks. I didn’t know the “common Pavement Ant” was an alien. Are there also native “Pavement Ants”?
Tetramorium tsushimae has been showing up in Illinois — Might yours be that one? Side by side, the latter is easily recognized by smaller size and typically somewhat more yellowish coloring, especially of the mesosoma. BTW, I hear there’s a real revision in the works that will provide names for all those “lettered” species.
Awesome picture. And I have heard of those Alien Ants. They will actually eat wire’s etc.. til l8er
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Aydin: The pavement ants are all introduced.
James: Thanks- I’ll check it out. The ants in my photo look a bit lighter than what I’m used to seeing.
Interesting…
…creepy.