In Our Neck of the Woods... Termites and Ants

Several day ago, I was hiking in the forest near our property and I came upon this old fallen branch covered in what looked like ants... but many of them had wings and were flying away as more continued emerging from inside the dead branch. What's up with that?

Well, with some types of ants (as well as termites), the queen produces winged offspring at certain times of the year, and the winged individuals emerge and take off all at once, often thousands at a time.

The question is, are these ants or termites?

Let's start with a bit of background information. Both ants and termites have what is called their annual nuptial flight. Basically, this is when some of the ants (or termites) take off flying to find a mate.

Ants and termites live in colonies, with a queen and a large army of non-reproductive female workers. During most of the season, the non-flying, non-reproductive female workers forage for food to feed themselves and the numerous larvae produced by the queen. This part of the year is for growing the colony. However, at certain times of the season, the queen changes her job. She stops laying eggs that hatch more non-reproductive female workers, and she starts laying eggs that hatch females that could become queens, as well as males that could mate with these females.

These potential queens, and the males that could mate with them, have wings. They all emerge from the colony at once and take to the air, swarming about and mating (yes, they mate while swarming in the air... the little multitaskers). Once a winged female mates with a winged male, the male loses its wings and dies (bummer), and the female goes off to become the queen of her own new colony (yay for the queen!).

As it turns out, the insects in the photo are ants. How do you tell if they are ants or termites? The easiest way is the body shape and the wing length. Zooming in on the photo, I could see a distinct constriction behind the head (a narrow neck). And with some of the winged individuals, you can see how the second pair of wings are shorter.