Thatching Ants

The purpose of this forum is to help people identify things they've seen while out hiking: wildflowers, trees, birds, insects, small animals, animal tracks, even geographical features like buttes or streams
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arlohike
Posts: 237
Joined: April 28th, 2014, 8:28 pm

Thatching Ants

Post by arlohike » May 8th, 2018, 9:53 am

I was going to post this as a question, but first I searched Google for "pine needle mound in forest" and that led me immediately to the Western Thatching Ant. I ran across one of their mounds on the Augspurger Mountain Trail yesterday, about a foot from the trail but mostly obscured in greenery, just below the powerline ridge at 2900 feet. It was about 2-3 feet in diameter. Pretty neat!
IMG_5428-1.jpg
(The weird cropping is because I was holding my phone out at an angle to see it better, but then I rotated it back to level later.)
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Aimless
Posts: 1922
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:02 pm
Location: Lake Oswego

Re: Thatching Ants

Post by Aimless » May 8th, 2018, 12:26 pm

My wife grew up in the western foothills of the Cascades and their nests were all over the wooded acres up behind the back pasture.

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bobcat
Posts: 2764
Joined: August 1st, 2011, 7:51 am
Location: SW Portland

Re: Thatching Ants

Post by bobcat » May 8th, 2018, 4:18 pm

The biggest one I have seen was on the Saddle Trail (near the Saddle-Summit Trail junction) in the Table Rock Wilderness. That one is about 10 feet in diameter!

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retired jerry
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Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm

Re: Thatching Ants

Post by retired jerry » May 8th, 2018, 6:43 pm

I will have to look for those, thanks

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