Lasius flavus

• Main Author: Collingwood, C. A.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 1979
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Taxonomy; Animalia; Arthropoda; Insecta; Hymenoptera; Formicidae; Lasius; Lasius flavus; Arctic; Fennoscandia; Finnmark
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6283844; http://treatment.plazi.org/id/A782F2EE46C07536289E7CE2E6A46922

33. Lasius flavus (Fabricius, 1781) Figs. 124-127. Formica flava Fabricius, 1781:491. Worker. Clear yellow to brownish yellow. Body hairs on dorsum of gaster and alitrunk long; appendages and body covered with more or less thick adpressed pubescence, more dilute on head. No erect hairs on tibiae, scapes or genae. Scale thin in side view, low and broad in front view with dorsal margin mildly convex straight or in larger specimens occasionally emarginate. Size very variable in North European populations. Length: 2.2-4.8 mm. Queen. Light to dark brown with underside paler. Pubescence and pilosity as in worker. Head distinctly narrower than alitrunk. Eyes with numerous short hairs. Wings partly infuscate. Length: 7.2-9.5 mm. Male: Dark brown to brownish black. Scape and tibial hairs entirely lacking; head narrower than alitrunk; mandibles with one apical and pre-apical tooth. Vein m-cu often missing on fore-wing but usually present in extreme northern populations. Wings faintly tinted but not infuscate. Length: 3.5-5.0 mm. Distribution. Throughout Denmark and Southern Fennoscandia up to latitude 67°; one record for Polmark in the Norwegian Finnmark. - Throughout British Isles excluding Northern Islands. - Range: North America to Japan; North Africa to Arctic. Biology. This species is very widely distributed and one of the most abundant in North Europe where it is a characteristic earth mound builder in pastures and along the periphery of woodlands but also nesting under stones in rocky areas. Colonies are started by one or more queens with primary pleometrose quite frequent. In North Europe nests in exposed places and in northern extremity of its distribution, L. flavus exhibits a wide range of worker size. On warm sites in southern areas usually in sandy lowland heath, worker size is small and much less variable. Eye ommatidium number is correlated with size and series of small workers with eyes with low ommatidium number are sometimes referred to Lasius myops Forel. However, queen size is constant regardless of ...