
Wood ant nest
Wood ant nest. This nest belongs to the Southern red wood ant, Formica rufa. Wood ant nests do differ between species, although it can be hard to tell them apart.

Nest and budded smaller nest of wood ant
Nest and budded smaller nest of wood ant. This budding often happens with wood ant species.

Social parasitism Queen and worker ants
Social parasitism in ants. The queen of the Slave maker ant, Formica sanguinea, being tended to by workers of Dusky ant Formica fusca.

Worker ant Formica aquilonia Scottish wood ant
Worker ant F. aquilonia Scottish wood ant, in profile. Workers are all haplodiploid, sharing much of their genetic material with their mother, the queen. This supports their eusocial colonies.

Male wood ant Formica lugubis Hairy wood ant
Male wood ant F. lugubris Hairy wood ant. These males have dark bodies and yellow legs and genitals. Like the females, they have wings. Unlike the females, shortly after mating during the nuptial flight, they will die.

Queen ant Formica aquilonia Scottish wood ant
Queen ant F. aquilonia Scottish wood ant with wings. Newly emerged queens have wings, and following their mating and nuptial flight, they bite these off. This enables them to burrow underground and set up a new ant nest and colony, and to begin laying eggs and raising young.

Pupae and cocoon of wood ant and unsheathed pupae
Pupae of a wood ant, both within its cocoon, and extracted. Detail from a life cycle ant illustration by Lizzie Harper natural history and sciart illustrator

Larvae of wood ant
Larvae of wood ant showing their translucent bodies and segmentation.

Eggs of wood ant
Illustration of several eggs of a wood ant.

Grassland landscape showing associated species and best practice management
Landscape of fields speckled with buttercups and grazing herds of sheep and cows, in the foreground there are shrubs then wild flower patches which provide cover for grey partridge, gatekeeper burtterflies, seven spot burnet moth, adonis blue butterfly, green woodpecker, hoverfly, bees, tiger beetle, and oil beetle on bare soil. WIld flowers shown include meadow […]