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Formica obscuripes
Look closely! I'm trying to identify the small black bugs that seem to be interacting with the western thatching ants (Formica obscuripes). The plant they are on is big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata). Anybody know what the relationship is here between the bugs as well as with the sagebrush? I've seen this a few times and was just curious what was going on here.
This big sagebrush was growing on a gentle south slope fairly close to a stream. Utah juniper, cheatgrass, bluebunch wheatgrass and various herbs were growing around this sagebrush.
Thanks to Travis Morse for the ant species suggestion!
Here are a couple related articles: https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/hand...
and https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/ojs/index.php/wn...
Spotted on Jul 29, 2009
Submitted on Mar 3, 2013
