Black garden ant

The black garden ant ( Lasius niger), Matt black ant, black garden ant or black garden ant called Grey, ( Formicinae ) belongs to the subfamily of ants shed to the genus of garden ants ( Lasius ).

Features

The workers are 3-5 millimeters long. The color varies from dark brown and black, the dense body hair is silvery, including there are also some longer hair. In fact, the longer body hair missing at the aliens garden ant ( Lasius alienus ), from which it is hard to distinguish. The reproductives swarm from June to September. The queens are 8-9 millimeters long, the males are 3.5 to 4.5 millimeters long. Being active is the black ant from March to October.

Distribution and habitat

The distribution area extends across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. It is the most common ant in Central Europe. They are found in not too dry habitats along forest edges as well as in open landscapes.

Way of life

As a very adaptable animal she lives in gardens and cities where they hiding under rocks, tree bark, in the lawn and in wall crevices and also penetrates into houses. Here they can cause damage to the wood under circumstances.

Nutrition

Diet are sugary (mainly honeydew ) and proteinaceous substances (mainly insects). Garden ants keep sheet, plate and root lice. They protect them from predators, build over near-ground branches often with a protective coating made ​​of sand and root lice breed in their own nest. To shorten the path, the lice also be brought on plants in vicinity of the nest.

Nesting

The animals build their nest a few inches high hills around only of earth and plants ( for example, blades of grass ). This is not very stable build something more durable, since the plants serve as pillars for the building.

Reproduction

The reproductives swarm on warm midsummer days. The mating takes place in flight. The males die soon after, the young queen takes off the wings and founds a nest. It closes in an underground chamber ( claus neutral colony formation). Here she lays the eggs and pulls the first workers on. Up to 25% colony founding is carried out by multiple queens ( Pleometrose ). All queens are eliminated except one usually shortly after the start-up phase by the workers or the dominant queen and the colony turns into a Monogynie.

Young queen in search of a hiding place

Black garden ant ( Lasius niger)

Find out more

• Developmentally, likely the kind already exist almost unchanged for around 50 million years ago. The Lasius found as one of the most common ants in their thousands in the Eocene Baltic amber is schiefferdeckeri morphologically the recent Lasius niger so similar that some authors regard them as artidentisch.

• L. niger is a popular way for keeping ants as it is rugged, aggressive and interesting. As a "living space " serves a Formicarium. The temperature must be adapted to the prevailing outdoors, in winter a winter rest is necessary, which occurs at about 6 ° C to 8 ° C.

Swell

• Heiko Bellmann: bees, wasps, ants. Hymenoptera of Central Europe. Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-440-09690-4