Ants invade almost every corner of the world as these tiny creatures are seen crawling everywhere, from deserts to forests and landscapes or indoors.
Types of ants in Connecticut include little black ants, pavement ants, vampire ants, slave-making ants, shampoo ants, pharaoh ants, western thatching ants, acrobat ants, mound ants, field ants, odorous house ants, and carpenter ants.
Connecticut provides suitable habitat for most of the ants’ species.
| Ants in Connecticut | Body length (inches) | Nest diameter (feet) | Presence of stinger |
| Little black ants | 0.0625 to 0.0833 | 10 to 12 | Present |
| Pavement ants | 0.08 to 0.12 | 18 to 20 | Present |
| Vampire ants | 0.157 to 0.255 | 3 to 5 | Present |
| Slave making ants | 0.20 to 0.30 | 1 to 2 | Present |
| Shampoo ants | 0.157 to 0.196 | 1 to 2 | Present |
| Pharaoh ants | 0.0625 to 0.083 | 2.5 to 2.9 | Present |
| Western thatching ants | 0.187 to 0.312 | 3 to 5 | Present |
| Acrobat ants | 0.0625 to 0.125 | 1.5 to 2 | Present |
| Mound ants | 0.125 to 0.25 | 16 to 18 | Absent |
| Field ants | 0.25 to 0.5 | 2 to 4 | Absent |
| Odorous house ants | 0.0625 to 0.125 | 5 to 6 | Absent |
| Carpenter ants | 0.25 to 0.5 | 9 to 10 | Absent |
Little black ants
These black insects are relatively smaller and reach almost 0.0625 to 0.0833 inches in length. However, their colonies are not smaller and range from moderate to large, with multiple queens.
They are commonly found in Connecticut and create nests in outdoor areas, particularly in the lawn soil and under the rocks, while their mounds are also present close to the entrance doors.
In addition, the diameter of the mound is 10 to 12 feet, while their depth is almost 2 to 5 feet, which means their nests are deeper than the height. They can also come indoors to reach moisture sources.
Furthermore, they possess a stinging organ to kill the predators when they try to steal their eggs or larvae or attack food resources.
Most of these insects are territorial that do not tolerate any interference in their nest and fight to the death to protect their nests.
Pavement ants
They have shiny or black bodies and extend only 0.08 to 0.12 inches in length, which means they are relatively smaller in size than bigger black carpenter ants.
You have to be careful of their attacks inside the kitchen as they are responsible for food contamination when crawling over the opened dishes.
Their mounds are 18 to 20 feet in diameter and 1 to 3 feet in depth, where they can keep food stored inside tunnels or chambers created by workers by displacing soil.
Furthermore, these crawling insects have a stinger, but they are not sharp or long enough to enter the deep skin tissues and are of no use to them.
Vampire ants
The vampire ants or Stigmatomma pallipes are 0.157 to 0.255 inches long and are known as Dracula due to their blood-sucking behavior. These are usually present within the soil or decaying leaf litter.
They have long, curvy teeth to bite an organism hard and suck their blood for nutrition. Commonly, they prefer to eat centipedes by stinging with their powerful stinger causing paralysis.
They are called vampires because they can kill their own larvae and drink their hemolymph to fulfill their nutritional requirements when they do not find any other organism.
Furthermore, the diameter of their mounds or nests is 3 to 5 feet, but their colony size is smaller based on 5 to 20 individuals commonly, but it can exceed from 50 to 60 in rare cases.
Slave making ants
Slave-making insects or Polyergus lucidus get control of colonies of other ants and kill their queens to make the foragers work for them as slaves till death.
In addition, the reasons for this behavior can be nutrition when they need to eat larvae or other workers from another colony to overcome the shortage of food and nutrients.
They are 0.20 to 0.30 inches long, but their queens can reach approximately 0.4 inches. The diameter of their nests is almost 1 to 2 feet, where they can reproduce or live without attacks.
Furthermore, these slave-making ants use stingers to kill the queens that are bigger in size and control activities in the colony by eating food collected by workers.
Shampoo ants
Formicoxenus provancheri, or shampoo ants, are named for their licking behavior because they lick the host until they begin to smell like the host or acquire their body odors.
Moreover, these insects are 0.157 to 0.196 inches long and raise their larvae into a foreign colony that does not belong to their mother queen.
These can collect food and build nests but avoid taking care of the brood or protecting the food resources; that’s why they move to a colony of other ants and raise their larvae.
In addition, they do not pose any harm to the members of a foreign colony but use their stored food to feed their larvae and act as social parasites.
Pharaoh ants
These tiny creatures are only 0.0625 to 0.083 inches long and weigh only 1 to 2mg due to their smaller bodies. Therefore, it is easier for these insects to larger distances because they have lighter bodies.
They can travel almost 140 to 145 feet (0.026 to 0.027 miles) away from their nests when looking for food or moisture. In addition, their mounds are only 2.5 to 2.9 feet in diameter.
Furthermore, they can fight with the help of a stinger to transfer the poison to the attacker’s body whenever they have the risk of attack. They avoid biting because their small pincers or jaws cannot bite hard.
Western thatching ants
Connecticut is home to Formica obscuripes and many other species providing suitable living and growing space to these tiny creatures. They are named for using thatches or twigs to build nests.
These are 0.187 to 0.312 inches long and are commonly found under stones and wooden logs. It is easy to identify their mounds created from vegetation using leaves, twigs, and pines.
The diameter of their nests is around 3 to 5 feet, and the depth is almost 4 to 5 feet providing suitable spaces for the hundred thousand members in a colony.
Furthermore, their bodies have a stinger at the end that can be used to inject the poisonous material from the poison gland into the body of prey or attacker.
In addition, it is known for aggressive behavior and responsible for painful bites to pets and even humans when they need food or feel the threat in their surrounding areas.
Acrobat ants
They are 0.0625 to 0.125 inches long insects commonly found in moist places with fungal growth like a rotting log of wood. These can also build temporary nests within wall voids.
It is observed that these insects can create a nest of a diameter of around 2 to 4 feet under the rocks or make it deep enough that favors the survival of the colony.
In addition, a stinger is present on the caudal most part of their abdomen, which can help fight off predators and paralyze the prey. Furthermore, it can help them kill their prey after restricting their movement.
Mound ants
They have a brown or black abdomen that is different in color from the head and thorax region. Their body length is almost 0.125 to 0.25 inches, bigger than little black ants.
Stinger is not present at the end of their abdomen, but their teeth are sharp enough to pierce through the skin and cause the death of an attacker due to injury and poisonous formic acid.
They have larger colonies based on almost 200,000 to 20,000 members and hundreds of queens to ensure sustenance or survival by replacing the dying members.
Moreover, their nests are spread to a region of almost 16 to 18 feet and raised to nearly 2 to 3 feet from the ground. It is a dangerous ant species in Connecticut and widely known for deadly bites.
Field ants
Formica incerta or field ants are 0.25 to 0.5 inches long that look like carpenter ants as they have almost similar size and color. However, you can find the difference by noticing their behavior.
The former type is commonly found scavenging on dead insects or sucking nectar from the flower, while the latter ones are usually seen close to wooden logs while making deep tunnels.
In addition, the wood-eating insects can pose structural damage to the house in the long term, but these are only considered annoying pests causing food contamination.
Their mounds are 2 to 4 feet in diameter and 1 to 2 feet in height that are usually built on the sidewalks, foundations, or trees an eve under the ground.
Furthermore, they do not possess a stinging organ to inject the formic acid, but their bites can leave you in severe pain for a few minutes to hours.
Odorous house ants
Odorous house ants are 0.0625 to 0.125 inches long and give off an unpleasant odor that is detectable only when many of these insects get crushed.
They prefer to eat sweet food like powdered sugar or honey, which makes them prone to death as they will get attracted to baits prepared using sugary substances.
Their colonies have multiple queens and many worker ants ranging from a few thousand to a hundred thousand. Accordingly, their nests are deeper and have 5 to 6 feet in diameter.
Additionally, they are not supposed to pose any serious danger due to the lack of a stinger at the end of their abdomen and rely on their mandibles for defense.
Carpenter ants
Three types of carpenter ants are seen in Connecticut, including Camponotus pennsylvanicus, Camponotus nearcticus, and Camponotus chromaiodes.
Camponotus pennsylvanicus, or eastern black ants, can be identified by its dull black body color. Their colonies have polymorphic workers ranging in size between 0.25 to 0.5 inches.
Moreover, they create permanent nests in outdoor areas far from high-traffic areas. Still, some satellite nests are present indoors for easier navigation in the kitchen or bathrooms for food.
In addition, the Camponotus nearcticus, or a smaller insect in the carpenter ants category, looks like Lasius niger but differs from those garden insects.
These insects prefer to live in pine forests or oak trees and choose deciduous forests to build long-lasting nests. Camponotus chromaiodes, a red carpenter ant, live on dead trees or moist wood.
All of these insects can establish their satellite nests within buildings but prefer to get back to their outdoor nests after collecting food to feed queens and larvae.
Furthermore, they are commonly found enjoying sweet and greasy food like bread crumbs, cakes, and butter in addition to items rich in fit.
Related Articles: