Out of Pod Experience

I'm too low-tech to provide a photograph. Let me describe them:

Firstly, I live in Olympia, Washington, USA. if you also live in olympia and want to meet up, the answer is NO

They are just over a centimeter in length, maybe 12mm or so (I'm eyeballing it). One of the biggest ants I've ever seen, personally. They are about as big as a carpenter ant or even larger--but I suspect not a carpenter ant because they have a small head.

They are a solid black color, slightly shiny, no hint of brown. They have a smooth, hairless exoskeleton.

Carpenter ants are the same coloration, but (in my experience) have a very large, wide, flat head with large and powerful jaws. These ants have a large, elongated abdomen that is about 45% of the length of the ant, and the width of the abdomen is about 50% of the length of the abdomen. The thorax is elongated like in most ants, but is moderately large, kind of like a wasp. The thorax is about 2/3rds of the remaining length of the ant and nearly as wide as the abdomen. The head is relatively small, about a quarter the size of the thorax--half the length but equal in width, and flat like a typical ant or wasp head. Its jaws are small for an ant--they remind me of the jaws of a paper wasp. Its profile is straight like most wasps or some ants, not crooked like a lot of ants are.

Now I haven't looked very closely at hymenopteran jaws much before, but I've never noticed any small appendages behind the main jaw structures. This ant has several tiny almost hair-like movable appendages behind its jaws which it presumably uses to manipulate its food. Maybe all ants and wasps have these and I just never noticed. But on these they are pretty easy to spot.

I'm pretty sure it is an ant and not a wingless wasp. They have noI don't see any wing base on the thorax, even vestigial. There is no visible stinger, and the back of the abdomen is round and smooth. Actually the whole abdomen is rounded and smooth, for that matter.

The legs are fairly ant-like but a bit smaller compared to body size than I see in most ants. They are splayed out pretty evenly in all directions, the rear set being longest and extending out just as far as the abdomen. The front set extend just as far as the jaws. The middle set extend nearly straight out to the sides. The middle and rear sets are attached to the back of the thorax, while the front set are attached to the front of the thorax. I think this is normal for ants or even all hymenopterans perhaps. The legs extend perhaps 1.5 body widths to either side.

Its feelers are pretty standard for an ant.

I'm at a loss as to what kind of ant this is. Other people are saying it's a carpenter ant, but all my experience with carpenter ants and all the images I find of them on the internet tells me it is not a carpenter ant, or at least it is a rather odd variety if it is. Anyone able to shed some light on what this might be?

We call those little things sugar ants. They are much too small to be what I'm finding. I know sugar ants or "odorous house ants" well.

I've discovered that carpenter ants have a wide variety of species, over 1000 in their genus. So far, none of the carpenter ant species I've looked up match the description of these, but not all of them have as large a head as I remember. The main difference I see between these ants and the carpenter ants I'll supposedly see in Washington is the length of the abdomen. Guides (like the one you linked) are suggesting the abdomen length to be no more than 35% of the entire body length of the ant.

So I think this is probably some kind of carpenter ant after all, but not any of the common types.

You too can do your part against the invaders from Klendathu.

is there a possibility that they are queen ants ?

What is the weather like where you are ? Some ants don't really hibernate, especially ones that live under or near houses, as the warmth from the house keeps them active, so the ants continue to reproduce throughout the year, and queens emerge at all sorts of times, not just late summer.

Maybe capture one and put it in a jar of soil to see if it constructs a burrow. That might tell you if it's a queen.

It's just a damned ant, for sakes. Kill it with fire

Despite coming from the backwoods of Arkansas, I've seen insects here in Florida I have no idea what they are. I mean, not even knowing what kind (beetle, fly, weird ant, etc). There is just not even any guessing.

My older sister just spent FOUR MONTHS trying everything possible to get rid of a rat. Took up living inside the refrigerator housing. It was finally stopped in a trap cage, with no clue as to what lured it out finally.

They did "borrow" a neighbors cat for a few days, but it spent nearly the whole time just staring at the fridge. The thing just would not emerge, even in the middle of the night.

Even though they could clearly see it in the cage when finally caught, it was almost hard to believe.

Termite? Are the antenna straight or elbow shaped? (No wings could mean its a nymph.)

Tried Terro?

Excellent point, in fact I think you solved the problem. Apparently the queens and males have smaller heads in proportion to their bodies. Carpenter ant colonies are known to have multiple queens that are intolerant of each other. And as you pointed out, the workers may not need to be seen outside, but that doesn't mean the queens won't come out.

But best of all, have a look at this. That is, as far as I can tell, exactly what I've been seeing.

The question remains, then, why there are multiple queens running around making themselves easy targets? But I'm pretty satisfied that what I have here is a carpenter ant queen.

Nobody who knows what a thorax is would EVER mistake a termite for an ant. Ants would more easily be mistaken for spiders, even though that would be like mistaking a horse for a squirrel.