Ferruginous Carpenter Ant

I don't often photograph ants. As fairly small insects, it's frequently difficult for me to get a good enough picture of them to post/identify, but after plenty of iNaturalist IDs I feel fairly good about claiming this as a Ferruginous Carpenter Ant (aka Red Carpenter Ant) [1].

Though I couldn't find a lot of information on the Ferruginous Carpenter Ant, Wikipedia has a pretty good article on carpenter ants in general. They get the "carpenter" part of their name from their ability to bore into wood to build their nests. Unlike termites though, they chew holes in wood only to build a home; they can't eat the wood.

There's some question about how bad carpenter ants are for trees. Though they do chew into the tree, they may either eat other insects that feed on the trees, or they may just attack the other insects because they don't want them in the tree-neighborhood. But there is an exception to this: aphids or caterpillars that poop out honeydew may be protected from arthropod predators by the carpenter ants who want to feed on the honeydew [2] [3].

You might be thinking that carpenter ants are destroying your deck or house with their nest-building, but even that has a caveat to it. But let me quote from Dr. Eleanor's Book of Common Ants:

Because of these woodworking skills, some people see carpenter ants as household nuisances. While Black Carpenter Antscan make their tunnels in the wood of people's homes, they often point homeowners to bigger problems: damp and rotting wood from a leak or drip or other pests living in that wood. When wood becomes soaked through, carpenter ants can easily use their jaws to snap it away and bore their tunnels. If homeowners keep their wood dry, carpenter ants will usually stick to the trees. That is, unless the homeowners have pests like termites or wood beetles snacking away inside their walls.

May 18, 2022 at Duke Farms
Photo 203066039, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

[1] Though "red" is an easier name to remember (or at least to spell), I think "ferruginous" better captures the non-black coloring of the ant.

[2] In my picture there may be a green aphid. Or it might be a plant abnormality. If I had noticed it when photographing the ant, I'd have tried to get a better picture of it.

[3] The invasive Spotted Lanternfly produces lots of honeydew, so much that many trees are blackened with mold. I don't know if carpenter ants recognize this new species as a source of honeydew, but whether they do or not is probably irrelevant since birds are probably their only important predators. If a European Starling wants to eat a Spotted Lanternfly, a couple ants probably aren't going to stop them.

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