ACE ANTS GENERAL

Family

# species of ants in US and Canada

# of species considered pests

Ants belong to order

All pest ant species in North America are eu......

Ants live in colonies and have a social order with two different castes: workers and

Most ant species have only # egg laying female reproductive per colony

The workers care for the ... , forage for ... , and defend the ...

All worker ants are ...

The only males in an ant colony are pre

Only preproductive ants have wings and are referred to as al....

Workers ants do not have

Workers are generally easier to identify than ....

Depending on the species, the establishment of a new ant colony may involve a single mated queen with some workers leaving the nest to start a new colony, aka ...

When male and female reproductives leave the colony in great numbers, it is known as

Some species like ... ants do not swarm at all

Fire ant colonies may have more than # ants in a single nest

One special behavior of ants is their .... following behavior

Forager ants follow structural guidelines and use mostly ... seeking patterns to find food

They find their way back to the nest using ...waves, polarized ... , sun-... cues , visual

Ants returning to the nest with food lay down a special trail ...

Ants make use of insects for food, like aphids and ... insects

Eliminating ... producing insects may help reduce ant populations

Ant food preferences change with the changing ... states of the ant colony

... is a sweet liquid secreted by many plant feeding insects including aphids, ...bugs, ...flies, and other ... feeders

Scale insects benefit from ant .... , which removes honeydew and mold growth from their bodies.

Scales insects also benefit when ants drive off ... like lady beetles and parasitic wasps

Signs of honeydew producing insects include egg m....s , egg s..s , honeydew, m..d , w.x , and the insects themselves.

The first signs of honeydew producing insects are s...y, s....y leaves.

Shiny leaves are usually followed by black, sooty mold d......s

Sooty mold is a type of f....s that feeds on honeydew deposits and it often coats the l....s and t....s of infested plants

If you see a plant covered with d..k mold, sap feeding insects and their ant caregivers are probably close by.

Ants have # wing pairs of different sizes

The .... pair of wings is longer than the .... pair

Ants have g........e elbowed antennae

Ant antennae have a long basal segment calle the s...e

Ant antennae have a multi segmented section called f.......s

Ants have a a constriction between the g....r and t....x

Anatomical terms used to describe ants are s......y different from those we use for other insect orders

The three main body regions

The term abdomen is not used because an ant's abdomen extends from the t.. of the gaster to the middle of the t......c body region

The narrow bridge, the waist, between the gaster and the central body region is called the p.....l

The pedicel is part of the a.....n

All ant pedicels have either ... or ... segments aka n...s or p......s

The presence of n...s is the surest way to tell an ant from a

The number of ... on the pedicel is a starting point for classifying ants into s.........s

One useful way of identifying ant species is to look at the

In some ant species, the thorax is smooth and h...s, while others have ornamentation or distinctive s...e/hairs

Some species bear s...s in different numbers and configurations

Most individuals in the subfamily Formincinae have an a...e, a circular, cone-like, anal orifice at the tip of the gaster that is surrounded by a ring of hairs

Most members of the Dolichoderinae have a s...t-shaped orifice with no ring of hairs

One of easiest characteristics to see on ants is the s...e v...n among workers

Species with workers that are all the same size such as pavement ants are called m...c

Species with two distinct sizes of workers such as bigheaded ants are d...c

Species with multi sized workers like carpenter ants are p...c

Ants with multi sized workers, the smallest ants are m...s and thelagest are m...s

Intermediate sized ants are calle m...s

V...y in worker size can aid in i...n and is another reason why it is important to collect multiple ant workers

Ants belong to family F...e

Ants belong to order H...a

Theree important ant subfamilies - D...e , F...e , M...e

Ants with two nodes subfamily

Ants with one node, ring of hairs around nozzle like anal opening on tip of gaster

Ants with one node, slit like anal opening, no ring of hairs

Carpenter ants - many s...s , some are h...y d...e and some are n...e pests