Dolichoderus mariae
| Dolichoderus mariae | |
|---|---|
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| Dolichoderus mariae worker | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Suborder: | Apocrita |
| Superfamily: | Vespoidea |
| Family: | Formicidae |
| Subfamily: | Dolichoderinae |
| Genus: | Dolichoderus |
| Species: | D. mariae |
| Binomial name | |
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Dolichoderus mariae Forel, 1885 |
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Dolichoderus mariae is a species of ant in the subfamily Dolichoderinae and is found in North America.
This ant is distinctively coloured with the head, antennae, thorax, legs and petiole and the anterior part of the first abdominal segment reddish or ochre-brown. The remainder of the abdomen is black or deep brown. The integument is smooth and reflective, though fine sculpturing granules can be seen under magnification. The propodeum is longer than it is wide. Posteriorly, the propodeum is concave with some fine vertical striations. The head and body are hairless.
This ant has a wide range which includes Illinois, Minnesota and Oklahoma, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and northern Florida. The type locality is Vineland, New Jersey. It is common in some areas such as North and South Carolina, but rare in others and in the southern part of its range it can be confused with the similar species, Dolichoderus pustulatus.
This ant is found in prairies, glades and fens. It nests underground among plant roots.
A study of this species was undertaken in northern Florida. It was found that the worker ants remove soil from under clumps of wiregrass, other grasses or other fibrous rooted plants such as blackberry (Rubus spp.) or cattails (Typha spp.). The nest is a single, large conical chamber, which is open to the air round the base of the plant. Colonies make a number of these nests which are linked by trails across the ground along which ants move from one to another. There are many queens per nest. Over the winter there are just one or two nests in a colony but as summer advances, more and more chambers are excavated and there may be as many as sixty nests by late summer. After this the number starts to contract again. The colonies occupy roughly the same area each summer and territorial aggression has been noted between adjoining colonies. Within their territory, the ants tend and milk aphids and scale insects for their honeydew and also scavenge for dead insects. The size of the colony and the number of nests seemed to depend on the number of hemipterans in the territorial area. When these are abundant during the winter, the colony does not contract to such a great extent as when the season is harsh.
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Wikipedia