Foraging Characteristics: Medium sized ant with a slender body, uniformly light brown or brown. Workers smell stale, greasy, or musty when crushed. Workers often present in large numbers moving in trails. Trails may be similar to white-footed ant trails, but ants are more slender and move more quickly so foraging trails may not appear as condensed. Workers may overwhelm outdoor eating areas, even entering parked cars.
Detailed Description:
2.2-2.6
mm (1/11-1/10 in) long.
Twelve-segmented antennae without
club. One segmented petiole. Petiole
with vertically projecting scale. Body
hairs usually absent from thorax. No
sting. Subfamily
Dolichoderinae.
Most Common Complaint: Many
foragers inside and out. Does
not normally nest indoors, and can often be excluded from buildings. Spraying outdoors may reduce numbers around buildings, but more may
move in from surrounding areas. Baiting
may reduce colonies outdoors.
Flight Season: No flights, reproduce by budding only. Alate queens present in colonies April to mid-June.
Nest Sites & Characteristics: Multiple queens in many widespread subcolonies that dominate areas with millions of ants. Open habitats, both moist and dry. Usually in heavily disturbed sites but can invade natural environments. Nest in mulch and soil, under objects on soil or near tree roots, in trees, in rotten wood, and garbage piles.
Diet: Tend sap-sucking insects to collect honeydew. Feed at extrafloral and floral nectaries. Forage for sweets and proteins in homes.
Distribution: Alachua, Bay, Duval, Escambia, Hillsborough, Leon, Okaloosa, Orange, Liberty, Pinellas, Polk, Putnam, Seminole, Washington, and Walton Counties.
Origin: Argentina.
