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Alex Wild

For those who know anything about ants, here's a weird one: Lasius xerophilus.

Most Lasius species live in north temperate/boreal forests. This one? Sand dunes in North American deserts. A total oddball, and unexpected, living alongside classic desert species like Pogonomyrmex harvester ants.

Photographed at Monahans Sand Dunes, Texas.

@alexwild

This is a pretty ... loose use of the word "jumbo" I can admit that.

@futurebird What's kind of interesting is, these co-occur with at least two Dorymyrmex. Not sure how they divide up resources; I suspect the Lasius are mostly tending aphids on roots.

@alexwild this led me down a wild path trying to figure out which ants I’m most likely encountering in my yard. That led me to this page insects.ummz.lsa.umich.edu/fau, which states that in my county there’s only one *officially* recorded ant species.

That page is 30 years old, but it got me wondering: is there value in establishing local ant populations? I have never done such a thing - is there a local expert or institution I should seek out?

insects.ummz.lsa.umich.eduA Checklist of the Ants of Michigan

@alexwild
huh, any idea when they split from their nearest relatives?

It occurs to me that some of their range, maybe even all of it, would have been significantly wetter during the cold phases of the Pleistocene glaciation cycles.

@llewelly Not sure, I don't think anyone has ever sequenced these. They're very close to the eastern L. neoniger, though, so it could have been in that time frame.

@alexwild @futurebird I should see if we have these at the Montague Plains (postglacial river delta). We’ve had some researchers studying ants there.