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it is possible they are a species of the campanotus genus, more commonly known as carpenter ants. however, campanotus arent truly polygenous(having multiple Queens) but there are colonys where this does occur. Their abdomen and thorax look very similar to that of many campanotus ants. They could also be a species of formica, myrmica, or maybe solenopsis. how big were the ants?
jeeze i had a lot of typos sorry! :)
that not tjat
tjat narrows it down because if it wasalarge ant free way it means tvdcolony was fairly developed, and since the queen in a developed colony rarely leaves the nest unless absolutely necissary, and since the queen foesnt have a large cohort, it seems likely that the colony has multiple queens which can narrow down the list of species.
It is interesting to see the queen out with the worker ants. Was this a large ant "freeway" or just a group of them wandering?