Screen Shot Saturday - Formica fusca

[MikeSlugDisco]

"Formica fusca - a common black ant. Wood ants sometimes hijack their nests in order to expand. A newly mated wood ant queen will enter a Formica fusca nest and kill the existing queen, giving her a ready-made workforce."

 

[MBargo]

Poor fusca.. one of the best hosts for other parasitic Formicas, and Formica ereptor of course.

 

[Serafine]

Yep, they're called Serviformica (fusca) for a reason.
(Rapti)Formica sanguinea also likes to invade them and steal a part of their brood to keep them as slaves.

But then the Serviformica species still manage to survive and actually be successful to such a degree that other ants can parasite on them in the first place - this is also true for the Lasius niger black garden ants, the more successful an ant species is the more other ant species are there to capitalize on them.

There are even ants that parasite on ants which parasite on other ants, they're called hyperparasites.
One of these is the Lasius fuliginosus queen which enters a nest of Lasius umbratus and kills their queen to take over the colony, when Lasius umbratus is a species who's queen enters a Lasius niger nest and kills their queen to take over the colony.

 

[Redmoth27]

I feel that for her nest instead of dirt it should be WOOD!

 

[MartialisHeureka]

I'm excited to see all the actual scientific names in this game, and it not going an incredibly unscientific route. Can't wait for the game to come out!