futurebird, 1 month ago

Ethel is cute & round, settling in to her "Luxery ant condo" (It's a test tube.) She enjoyed a little sugar water, now she's in the darkness of the ant drawer. She looks very well-fed, so I think there is a good chance she will lay lots of eggs.

In four or five days I'll check on her again. Sometimes new queens just die. So, many don't like to name a queen until she has her first workers. But I'm cheering for this little urban ant.

The same ant as seen from the side, the photo is more hazy, taken through the test tube, but you can clearly see the shape of her gaster which helped me to confirm the species was Prenolepis imparis
The same ant drinks a bit of water from a cotton ball. Her head is small and shaped like a blunt rain drop coming to a dainty point at the mandibles. Her black eyes are on the large side for such a small head. You can see her wing scars and the mesa shaped hump in her mesonoma where her wing muscles were before she shed her wings.