How to Tell Ants Apart

Video Transcript

"Hi friends I'm Mark Govan here with ABC Pest Control in Largo, Florida and a lot of people always want to know how do I identify ants? Because there are so many different ant species if you don't know what type of ant you have, well you have to be able to identify it. So unfortunately, unless your eyes are better than mine, you're going to need a microscope because microscopes can help you look at the ant in ways that you can't normally tell through the naked eye. Now if you look at the little chart that we have here behind me, this will tell you how to actually, how we identify ants at ABC Pest Control. You have to look at the segments between the ants and in between those segments are nodes that attach the abdomen to the thorax. So in that area you have either one node or two nodes. So that's one way you tell. Another way is to go ahead and count the actual segments on the antenna. Now you know how small an ant is, try counting those yourself without a magnifying glass or without a microscope. Very, very hard to do. But some of them might have three or four lobes on the antenna, others that might have about ten or twelve. That's very important. Another way to tell is by the actual size or length of the legs that the ant has. If you can tell some of the like crazy ants have very long legs and that way they run around very quick. Another way to tell the difference of course is color and again we have a nice color chart here below that shows you some of the different colorations of ants and that may be one of the first keys to help you identify ants too. Now something else is the shape of the ant. Certain ants may have a pointed rear end and others may have long antennas. All of these are ways in a professional pest control service that they use to go ahead and find out what the different types of ants are. So number one, like I said is identification and using a key will sure help you. I'm Mark Govan with ABC Pest Control in Largo, Florida hoping you have a pest free day."