A relatively new annual Alberta tradition, a winter bug count, has turned up an interesting and unexpected find in a Westlock apartment building — a species of warm-climate ant.
John Acorn, a naturalist widely known for his role as “The Nature Nut,” said a former student who was visiting a friend in Westlock discovered a ponerine ant in a damp space near an apartment building’s water heater.
“I don’t have any details — which is probably good — about which apartment building,” he said. “It’s important to remember this thing isn’t a pest — it’s not an indication of terrible things to come.”
The discovery was made as part of the third annual Winterbugs Alberta, in which insect enthusiasts take a cue from the birders and catalogue what kind of insect life they can find during the three winter main winter months, December through February. It has turned up a few unexpected finds in three years.
“We had a mite that was new for Canada in the first year,” he said. “There’s always something a little bit interesting, but this year the Westlock ponerine was the real show-stopper.”
But how, exactly, could this species turn up in Westlock in the dead of winter?
“Who knows? There’s no much known about how it gets from here to there,” Acorn said. “One possibility would of course be in potted plants. People often bring their plants with them when they move.”
This particular species of ant was first described in a greenhouse in Germany — it was clearly not a German ant, and at the time they suspected it was likely an ant from Africa that had ended up in Germany somehow.
Ponerine ants have, since then, turned up all over Europe and the United States.
“This is thing manages to get around really well.”
It is very unlikely that a single ant could exist in isolation; the ponerine ant’s presence means there is almost certainly a colony of these ants near where the specimen was found.
While at first blush this might seem like a bad thing, Acorn said this species actually eats other little bugs.
“They’re probably in most people’s eyes good things to have,” he said.
And as for competing with other species, Acorn said this is not at all a concern — it doesn’t tolerate the cold so it can’t survive an Alberta winter. That means it is limited to indoor areas, and even then isn’t really a pest.
“We only have one other building-dwelling ant that it might even vaguely compete with, which is called the pharaoh ant,” he said.
“The pharaoh ant really is a pest ant. It gets into restaurants and things like that.”
Acorn noted that while to his knowledge the Westlock discovery is the first time this particular species has been described in Alberta, it probably won’t become a point of pride for the community.
“It’s probably found in all sorts of places other than Westlock,” he said. “Westlock, if you want to take pride in it that’s good, but there’s no reason to believe it went straight to Westlock and skipped right to the rest of the country. It must be somewhere else, it’s just there are very few people looking at tiny ants.”
Anyone interested in seeing if a little critter they have found is a member of this particular species can send their samples to John Acorn, care of the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta.
“We’ll let them know what they’ve got,” he concluded.
