Myrmica ruginodis

Myrmica ruginodis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hymenoptera
Family:	Formicidae
Genus:	Myrmica
Species:	M. ruginodis
Binomial name
Myrmica ruginodis Nylander, 1846

External identifiers for Myrmica ruginodis
Encyclopedia of Life	392794
ITIS	580452

Myrmica ruginodis is a species of ant that lives in northern parts of Europe and Asia. It is very similar to M. rubra, but has a more northerly and higher-altitude distribution. Overwintering larvae may become either workers or queen ants, with up to 20 queens living in a colony of up to 2,500 individuals. Two subspecies are recognised, differing in the relative size of the queen.

There is a close resemblance between Myrmica ruginodis and Myrmica rubra, another common species across much of Eurasia. They differ in the shape of the base of the antennae, which are curved in M. ruginodis and sharply angled in M. rubra, and in the spines projecting from the back of the thorax – in M. ruginodis, these are as long as the distance between their tips, while in M. rubra, they are shorter.

Myrmica ruginodis is found across the northern Palaearctic region, at higher altitudes and latitudes than M. rubra. Its range extends from Western Europe to Japan, and from Italy in the south to the Norwegian North Cape in the north.M. ruginodis is the only species of ant to have been recorded from all of the vice-counties into which the British Isles are divided for the purposes of biological recording, including the Channel Islands, and the only ant species present in Shetland, where it is "locally common".

It is "very abundant" in European woodland and moorland, especially above an altitude of 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), where it replaces M. rubra. The diet of M. ruginodis usually consists of small insects and other arthropods, but may also include any carcasses of birds and mammals found while foraging.

...
Wikipedia