The yellow meadow ant (''Lasius flavus''), also known as the yellow hill ant, is a species of

ant Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of 22 ...

occurring in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

(where it is one of the most common ants),

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

, and

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

. Populations in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

are now considered a different, related species, '' Lasius brevicornis''. The

queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

is 7–9 mm long, males 3–4 mm and workers 2–4 mm. Their colour varies from yellow to brown, with queen and males being slightly more darkly colored. The species lives primarily underground in meadows and very commonly, lawns. The nests are often completely overgrown by grass, however, often their presence is betrayed by small mounds of loose soil material between the grass stalks. They will also nest under large rocks or concrete slabs. Lawn nesting will eventually become obvious as the aphids clear sections of grass or portions of gardens. The yellow meadow ant feeds on the honeydew from root aphids, which they breed in their nests. During winter, the

aphid Aphids are small sap-sucking insects and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Common names include greenfly and blackfly, although individuals within a species can vary widely in color. The group includes the fluffy white woolly aphids. A t ...

s themselves are sometimes eaten. As a consequence of their feeding habits, the species only occasionally forages outside the nest. Evidence of their underground lives is their lack of pigmentation and the smaller size of their eyes, compared to closely related species like the

black garden ant The black garden ant (''Lasius niger''), also known as the common black ant, is a formicine ant, the type species of the subgenus ''Lasius'', which is found across Europe and in some parts of North America, South America, Asia and Australasia. ...

. They are a timid species and will often simply barricade their tunnels to fight off invaders.

Alate Alate (Latin ''ālātus'', from ''āla'' (“wing”)) is an adjective and noun used in entomology and botany to refer to something that has wings or winglike structures. In entomology In entomology, "alate" usually refers to the winged form o ...

s (winged, unmated queens and males) can be seen on warm days and evenings of July and August. This is one of the rare times that they are seen, as workers open up their nest entrances and herd the young winged ants out of the nest. Colonies are often founded by multiple queens (''

pleometrosis Pleometrosis is a behavior observed in social insects where colony formation is initiated by multiple queens primarily by the same species of insect. This type of behavior has been mainly studied in ants but also occurs in wasps, bees, and termite ...

''). Later on, when the first workers emerge, fights between the founder queens will erupt, with only one queen left ('' monogyne''). However, this species is also known to have single colonies with multiple queens and up to 250,000 workers, when they are spread out over multiple interconnected nests. Copthorne_Common_Fossil_Anthills

References

External links

AntBlog has identification, reproduction and colony founding information on Lasius flavus.
Lasius Hymenoptera of Africa Hymenoptera of Asia Hymenoptera of Europe Hymenoptera of North America Insects described in 1782 {{formicinae-stub