This is the same Crematogaster ant from last week, but now she has brood! In this photo, she is carrying her three eggs in her mandibles. My other two Crematogaster queens also have brood, but they are in the process of moving into new homes, so I left them alone. I thought they might lay eggs this week because of their slightly swollen gasters, which are a good indication that your queen ant is about to lay eggs.
This yellow-brown ant is a fertile queen that I caught from a tennis court. I know she is fertile because I found her in the act. However, I had to wait for roughly ten minutes for the male ant to detach so that I could catch her! She has one egg and is even smaller than Onetenna!
She is a Brachymyrmex depilis queen, which is a native species in my area. They are ridiculously common, as I have NINE B.depilis queens! This queen recently laid her first egg, which she is carrying in her mandibles. In total, I have twenty-nine queen ants! I also measured her length, which is 4mm. that indicates her nanitics will be 2-3mm long, which is really tiny. To fill an Ants Australia founding nest, I would need a large colony of B.depilis.
