Non-Moths of 2015 - Ants

Ant, winged female.  Subfamily Formicinae.  In my garden light trap in Hayes on 22 August 2015

Just two photos this time, but interesting ones.  These are ants that turned up in my garden light trap on consecutive nights in August.

Late in the summer, ant nests come to a climax, and on a day when the weather is suitable they send out hundreds of winged males and females.  It should be a warm day with no strong wind and usually a light overcast.  On a really good day, sometimes you can see swarms of ants flying over pavements, where they have made their nests in the sand used to bed down the flagstones.

When they have met and mated, the males die and the females drop their wings and find a place to set up a nest for the next year.

People don't usually think of ants as being winged insects - which is reasonable, because most of them don't have wings.

These two have clearly not mated during their nuptial flight, because they still have their wings the next morning after a night resting in the trap.

Ant, winged female.  Subfamily Myrmicinae.  In my garden light trap in Hayes on 23 August 2015

You can see that although they are obviously ants, they look quite different from each other.  One is smooth and brown, and the other is smaller, wrinkled and reddish.  They belong in different sub-families.