Search Results for: Black garden ant

Black garden ant

…Lasius niger The common ant in the garden, in courtyards and roads is the black garden ant, which in Latin is called Lasius niger. In fact, it is this species of ant that one will encounter in houses. Appearance Due to the name, one is tempted to believe that the black garden ant is just black, they are brown. The working ants are 3.5 and 5 mm long. On the outer antennae there are small hairs. Biology and behavior Black garden ants live in gigant…

Jet ant

Latin: Lasius fuliginosus The jet ant or jet-black ant is in danish called “orange ant”. The danish name is not because of the color, because the jet ant is not orange. The danish name comes from the fruit orange. Because the ant has a sweet orange scent, which scent can be enhanced when squeezing the ant so it is believed that the scent comes from within the ant. This type of ant is widespread throughout Denmark, except West Jutland. Appearance…

Yellow shadow ant

…e and her followers like to invade other ant habitats, and it is often the black garden ant’s nest that gets invaded. Although the two species share kinship, the yellow shadow ant does not show any mercy towards the black ants. The queen of the yellow shadow ant kills the queen of the black ants and exploits the workers of the black ants to found her own colony. Damage When the yellow ant settles down and builds nests in houses, it most often happ…

(8) The pharaoh ant and the common black ant

Pharaoh ant The black garden ant The pharaoh ant is an African species that first appeared in Northern Europe nearly 100 years ago. It is omnivorous, but can only survive in warm and humid environments. Its basic life demands are very similar to those of cockroach and it also live in the places where you would expect to find cockroaches. This ant’s small size and the large number of individuals which exist in a colony, allow the pharaoh ant to re…

Small black or garden ant

Latin: Acanthomyops niger, lasius niger Preferred common name: Common black ant Small black or garden ant Tender woodwork that has served as part of a nest of black garden ants. The surface gets a typically sanded structure Several of the ants which otherwise live in the ground will occasionally build their nests in damp timber in the house, and these include the garden ant. They will only start to gnaw their way into timber which has already bee…

Small black or garden ant

…hich is actually a sweet, sticky secretion produced by aphids or greenfly. Black garden ants in bait When garden ants get into the house it will soon be seen that they are particularly attracted to sweet substances, such as drops of jam or scraps of pastry and cake. As soon as one ant has found such a delicacy there will soon, as though by magic, be a whole trail of them. Naturally, of course, there is nothing magical in this. Ants cover a wide ar…

The common black ant

…der tiles. They penetrate anywhere through cracks to seek food. The common black ants live mainly of sweet liquids. In nature they live of aphid excrement, but also various small insects, which they overpower. In private households, shops and businesses the ants especially seek towards sweet and sugary foods. The common black ants hardly have any significance as disease carriers. Often the first signs of ant activity inside, are small piles of san…

Ants

…so been found in amber dating to a time almost 100 million years back. The black garden ant (Lasius niger) can be found all over Europe, and as it is extremely common on streets, in yards, gardens and houses it is often this ant we encounter. Worker ants are 3 mm long and are actually more brown than black. Their societies usually consist of 5 to 10,000 members, and there is usually only one egg-laying queen in every community. The ant colony is m…

Hercules ant

…not without reason that the Hercules ant has earned its name. The Hercules ant is the largest ant in Denmark. However, the ant, which also goes by its Latin name Camponotus herculeanus, is not very common in Denmark. It is only found in North Jutland and North Zealand, where it lives in the areas’ coniferous forests. Appearance Although the Hercules ant as described is the largest ant in Denmark, not all the species’ ants are the same size. The qu…

Pharaoh ant

…ore, the pharaoh ant likes to settle in shops or food warehouses or restaurants, canteens, bakeries, and commercial kitchens. They can therefore be a major nuisance when they manage to enter food. But pharaoh ants are not just an annoying nuisance. They can also pose a risk of infection if they manage to enter a hospital, where they can find bandages, wounds, or sterile packaging. Prevention and pest control If the pharaoh ant intrudes into a priv…

The pharaoh ant

…te households. All kinds of food may be eaten by this ant. Like the common black ant, the pharaoh ant also has appetite for jam, sugar and honey. Meat products, cheese, high-fat foods, dead insects, carrion and mouse droppings are also among the things that this ant eats. In hospitals, pharaoh ants crawl into sterile products and under the patients’ bandages. Furthermore they seek out waste, carrion and drains, so there is no doubt that the pharao…

The jet black ant

…Latin: Acanthomyops fuliginosus Jet black ant It may also find its way into the kitchen. It makes it’s nest in timber and is discussed in more detail in the book on page 145 – jet black ant and timerberpest – together with the pests of timber….

Jet black ant

(Latin: Acanthomyops fuliginosus, lasius fuliginosus) Jet black ant These shiny, black ants normally live in trees, and they have a distinct smell of oranges. They can establish themselves in the dead parts of trees, in stumps and in wooden floor boards damaged by damp. They gnaw extensive tunnels and holes in the timber, and they fill them with a dark papery material which they make by mixing gnawed wood fragments with saliva and particles of ea…

Black fly bites

…g. 40. Newly-hatched black flies can form large swarms in May. Only female black flies need blood, and they bites outdoors at all times of the day. Most black flies prefer other host animals; however, they bite humans if more suitable hosts are not present. When a black fly is about to suck blood, it is not easy to chase away. However, it is easy to slap. Its mouth parts are short. It scrapes a small hole in the skin and drinks the blood from the…

Ants

…empt to bite a whole in the skin while spraying the venom. Fig. 54. A wood ant anthill. (Ib Andersen) The wood ants are useful animals, which kill harmful insects, but a large anthill in the immediate vicinity of the house can be troublesome. If you want to save the wood ant colony, you can scoop the anthill into a tarpaulin and place it in a suitable location in the woods. Alternatively, you can coat the anthill {1with insect powder. Pharaoh ant,…

Index

…cockroach Americana, Periplaneta Anagasta kuehniella Anobiidae Ant, common black Ant, pharaoh Apion Apodemus flavicollis Araeocerus fasciculatus Arboreal furniture beetles Auricularia, Forficula Australian spider beetle Bacon beetle Bean moth, cocoo Bean weevil, common Bean weevil Bees Bisquit beetle Black ant, common Black rat Black-legged ham beetle Blowflies Bolting cloth bettle Bostrychidae Booklice Brown house moth Brown rat Brown-banded cock…

Portuguese slug

…tuguese slug is especially unpopular with homeowners who have decorative plants and kitchen gardens, as the slug eats its way through all this planting relentlessly. Likewise, the portuguese slug has created a lot of havoc, as it does not have a natural enemy in the Danish nature. Therefore, it is a danger to the overall food chain, as it can upset the balance in several ecosystems with its mere presence. The portuguese slug is also more aggressiv…

Black rat

…placed by the brown rat. Black rats were responsible for spreading plague (Black Death) in Europe during the Middle Ages. In most parts of Europe black rats have been completely eliminated, but they continue to arrive in ships from overseas and are therefore still present in certain large ports. They are associated with man to an even greater extent than the brown rat, but being more warmth-loving they do not occur out in the open in central and n…

The black rat

…en away by the brown rat. It was the black rat, or rather the fleas of the black rat, that caused the plague epidemics which under the name “the Black Death” depopulated much of Europe in the Middle Ages. In the Nordic countries, the black rat is undoubtedly completely gone, but it is occasionally imported by ships from overseas. The black rat lives in higher temperatures than the brown rat, so it does not appear in fields in northern Europe. The…

Black flies

…Fig. 39. Black flies. From left: larva, pupa and adult. At the top: a leaf of an aquatic plant with black fly larvae and pupae. (Martini) The black fly (Simuliidae) is approx. 2 mm long, powerfully built flies. They are black and often have whitish markings on the body and legs. There are fifty different species of black flies in Denmark. They all need running water. Some species mate in streams, others in brooks and ditches….

Hercules ant

…es the nests can be found up to a height of 10 m from the ground. Hercules ant on infested wood The ants gnaw their tunnels in the soft spring wood, and leave the summer wood alone, so that in a transverse section of the tree trunk the tunnels appear as numerous regular rings. In a longitudinal section the summer wood remains as a series of lamellae, pierced here and there by openings which connect the different tunnels. There have been cases wher…

Index

…lnachis io Indian meal moth lsoptera Itch mite lxodes ricinus Jackdaw Jet black ant scent Kalotermesfiavicollis Kestrel Khapra beetle Kleemannia plumigera Lacewing Larder beetle Large white butterfly Lasioderma serricorne Lasius fuliginosus Lasius niger Lepidoptera Lepinotus inquilinus Lepisma saccharina Leptura rubra Lesser grain borer Lesser housefly Lice, faeces Little owl Longhorn beetles Limaxfiavus Limax maximus Limnothrips cerealium Linogn…

Rats

…e found in warehouses in ports. It does not thrive in European nature. The black rat was in 1700 supplanted by the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus). This rat originated from East Asia but quickly spread with ships and on foot (hiking rat). Why Linné named it after his dear neighbours and called it the Norwegian rat is not known. The brown rat is larger, more aggressive and adaptable than its black relative. Selma Lagerlöf describes in “Niels Holgerss…

Ant beetle

…(Latin: Corynetes coeruleus) (Ham beetle) – Ant beetle, corynetes coeruleus This beetle has very similar habits to the preceding species, Opilo. Its larvae wander round in the tunnels and attack wood-boring larvae. They may also feed on the larvae of moths and larder beetles, for example in birds’ nests, and like the copra beetles (p. 75) they are sometimes found on dry carrion. Ant beetle is a natural enemy of timber pests….

Pharaoh ant

…rded as one large family, consisting sometimes of hundreds of thousands of ants. Pharaoh ants, worker and queen Pharaoh ants are almost omnivorous They usually feed on sweet substances, but they also visit meat products, cheese, dead insects and carrion. They are sometimes found in food stores, shops, canteens and even in private houses. In most cases they do little or no damage but they can be rather annoying. In hospitals where conditions are mo…

KEY II, animals with 3 pairs of legs; insects

…a ‘wasp waist’ Large animals, i.e. the adults are larger than an ordinary black garden ant About the size of a black ant, but pale termites Smaller than an ordinary black ant With biting mouthparts, and very long whip-like antennae cockroaches With sucking proboscis, folded in beneath head Body outline almost circular bed bugs. Body outline oval, always covered with dust fly bug (nymphs) Dark, shiny, hard (almost impossible to squash) Pale and so…

Faeces

…may also be found else- where, frequently in a small pile. Rat excrements Black rat droppings are shorter and thinner than those of the brown rat, 10 mm long and 2-3 mm across, and often slightly curved and pointed at the ends. It is characteristic of black rats living in a loft that their droppings will be scattered over the whole floor, whereas under the same conditions brown rats leave their droppings in corners or along the walls. Bat excreme…

The black-legged ham beetle

…Latin: Necrobia violacea. Also called the cosmopolitan blue bone beetle. The black-legged ham beetle This species is blue shiny metal coloured. It is especially common in dry carrion, but can also infest the same types of products as the other types of copra beetles….

Prevention and control

…where black flies transmit serious diseases, the streams in which the larvae hatch are treated with insecticide. This, however, is not an approach that will be used in Denmark, where the black flies are not suspected of transmitting diseases. The vast majority of larvae and pupae stick to aquatic plants. If you cut the aquatic plants in the streams at the right time, before the black flies hatch, it can sometimes help the problem. The streams, in…

Black vine-weevil

…ger weevils. It moves around in a characteristic slow manner, and like all weevils it is vegetarian. The larvae live in the soil and feed on the underground parts of plants. The adults avoid the light and hide themselves during the day, often in the surface soil at the base of a plant, but they emerge at night to feed. They attack many different kinds of plant and may cause considerable damage to fruit trees and bushes. These beetles are sometimes…