Subject: Big ant with provision for winter
Geographic location of the bug: Tonasket WA
Date: 09/04/2018
Time: 10:56 AM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: Amazing how much ants can carry. And I suspect this was light for it! Do ants paralyze their quarry, or would this one be dead? I feel bad about the spider, but grateful the ants get to eat.
How you want your letter signed: Cathy
Dear Cathy,
Based on this BugGuide image, we are pretty certain your ant is a Western Black Carpenter Ant, and according to BugGuide: “Omnivorous – eat honeydew, sap, living and dead insects, etc. Do not eat wood, only nest in it, and usually only after fungi have softened it.” That said, the curl to the Spider’s legs indicates it was probably dead before the Western Black Carpenter Ant discovered it.