AntsCanada Tutorial #37: How can you tell if an ant is a queen? This video is a tutorial on how to identify a queen ant from a worker or male ant. I also list some of the most commonly kept ant genera with photos of what their queens look like, to help you identify what type of queens you might have for those who aren’t sure.

How To Identify a Queen Ant

Greetings, everyone! Welcome to another AntsCanada video.

Alright, so it’s July, and this is the time of the year when the most species of ants are having their nuptial flights in North America and a lot of Europe. So, for those of you who feel like you’re too late in catching a queen ant this year to start your pet ant colonies, you’re wrong – the fun has actually just begun!

In light of this, I’ve been getting a lot of emails lately asking me to identify queen ants that some of you might have caught. It seems some still may be having trouble trying to identify whether the ant you caught is a queen or not. So, I hope that when you finish watching this video, you’ll have a better idea of what a queen ant looks like and how to distinguish it from other workers and male ants.

Also, for those of you who caught a queen ant this season and aren’t sure what kind of ant she is, stay tuned until the end of this video, because I will list some of the most commonly kept and found ants by genus around the world and show you exactly what the queens look like. Perhaps you might just spot your ant in the list.

So, let’s get to it, guys! This week’s episode of the AntsCanada channel is our re-tutorial on how to identify queen ants.

Queen Ant Identification

Now, there are several ways to tell if an ant is a queen or not, but I’ll start with the easiest way. Queens are larger than workers and male ants. Seems simple, I know, and I think everyone knows this.

However, sometimes using size alone can be tricky. For example, take a look at this photo. Do you see a queen ant in this photo?

If you answered yes and were looking at this ant, don’t worry, you’re not alone. There are many out there who would say that this is a queen based on its size.

The truth is, this is a worker. So, you see, in order to identify a queen in some cases, we may need more than just size to go on. So let’s proceed with other clues.

When looking to see if an ant is a queen, the first place to look is the ant’s thorax – the technical term is the mesosoma. Get used to that term; I’ll be using it a lot in this video.

Now, when I catch a strange ant that I’ve never seen before and can’t tell if it’s a queen or not, the first place I look is her mesosoma, particularly her wing scars.

You see, queen ants are born with wings which they use during their nuptial flight. Then, after they mate, these queens break off their wings, leaving some very prominent wing scars.

So, if an ant that you catch has wing scars on her mesosoma, you know for sure she’s a queen. As for male ants, they also have wings, but they keep their wings and die directly after mating. So, in nearly all cases, you won’t see wing scars on a living male ant – you’ll only see them on queen ants.

Another thing about male ants, by the way, is male ants look completely different from queen ants. They usually don’t even look like ants at all – they look more like skinny wasps. They have tiny heads and large eyes.

Sometimes examining for wing scars can be a challenge. So, another clue in the mesosoma region (area) of the ant that shows you it’s a queen is the size of the mesosoma and the number of parts. Take a look at this photo from alexanderwild.com.

It shows a queen ant and a worker ant. In this species, the difference is a little more subtle. But with a closer inspection of the queen, you’ll see her mesosoma parts: you can see her prothorax here in blue, her mesothorax in yellow, the metathorax in red, and her propodeum in green.

Here are the corresponding parts in the worker ant. Now, comparing the two, you’ll notice that the queen’s mesosoma is larger and has more parts. The queen’s mesothorax (the yellow part) and metathorax (the red part) are areas that housed the queen’s wing muscles and are therefore much larger than those of the worker.

When I look at it, I find the mesothorax forms a sort of plateau-like structure in queens, which is lacking in the worker ants. So, when I look to see if an ant I caught is a queen and I can’t readily notice any wing scars, I look for this plateau-like or dome-shaped structure housing the queen ant’s wing muscles.

Alright, so now that you know this, let’s do another test. Which of these two large ants in the picture is a queen? And which is just a major worker?

Queen Ant Test

If you answered the ant on the right, congratulations! You got it right! You can clearly see that plateau, the dome-shaped mesothorax.

If you got it wrong, don’t worry about it too much – you’ll get the hang of it the more you get used to seeing queen ants. Other clues that point to queens, especially in formicine ants, are large gasters. Lasius, Formica, and Camponotus queens are unmistakable. They have large gasters in relation to the rest of their body.

Myrmicine ants like Myrmica, Pogonomyrmex, and Aphaenogaster tend to be a bit trickier to identify based on just the gaster-to-body size ratio. So, to identify if myrmicine ants are queens, you mainly have to go by body size compared to workers and their mesosoma.

So, to recap: Queens are larger than workers and males, have wing scars, don’t look like wasps with small heads and big eyes, have large mesosomas with that dome-shaped area, and tend to have large gasters.

Alright, so here are some of the commonly found ants in North America and Europe. Hopefully, for those of you who have a queen ant now and aren’t sure what type of ant she is, this section of the video may help you.

So, let’s start with a photo of what a Tetramorium queen looks like. This is a Lasius queen, the Camponotus queen, Formica, Solenopsis, Aphaenogaster, Brachymyrmex, Cephalotes, Crematogaster, Prenolepis, Linepithema, Monomorium, Myrmica, Novomessor, Pogonomyrmex, Pheidole, Tapinoma, Myrmecocystus, and Ponera.

Now let’s move on to the tropics: Acromyrmex, Atta, Odontomachus, Polyrachis, Oecophylla, Myrmecia, and Paratrechina.

Okay, thanks so much for watching this video. I hope it helps you out this season in catching your queen ants.

If you like this video, please do subscribe, like, share, and leave me a comment. I love to hear from you guys. Visit us at AntsCanada.com for all your ant-keeping needs.

Oh, and don’t forget, if you have extra queens that give rise to colonies that become too much for you to care for, visit our GAN Project section under Queen Ants for Sale on our website, and we can help you sell those colonies off or give them away to an ant-loving city or region.

Good luck catching those queens, guys! Stay tuned for next week’s video, and yes, we now upload a new ant video every Monday. It’s Ant Love Forever. Bye!

Thanks so much for watching our video. It really meant a lot to me. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel if you liked this video. We upload once a week. Be sure to check out our ant tutorial playlist, and if you like watching ants in large colonies, do check out our Solenopsis geminata playlist.

Finally, be sure to visit our website, AntsCanada.com. We’ve got tons of great information there. We’ve got a fantastic forum, and by the way, we’re looking for moderators, so be sure to email me if you have some moderating experience.

We’ve got some great pro ant farms available for you to choose from that are easy to use and help you grow super big and healthy. Also, thank you so much to Alex Wild from alexanderwild.com for allowing us to use his photos in this video and in other AntsCanada videos. Be sure to check out his amazing photography.

Take care! It’s Ant Love Forever. Bye-bye.