Godshammer666 posted...
Looks like a carpenter ant. Winged ants are reproductives with the females being larger and males being smaller, all ants without wings are female. Carpenter ants are primary WDOs, meaning they will attack sound wood. They dont eat it like a termite, they mine it. If you see winged ones, there is a colony nearby, and they are looking for love. As soon as they mate, they male dies, and the female will fly off to start a new colony. It takes roughly 7 years for a female to grow wings, so seeing reproductives usually means the colony is established. This does not mean you have an infestation, it could have flown in. Tell tale signs of an infestation would be several worker ants and seeing piles of frass (sawdust)
Im only familiar with the carpenter ant species of the Pacific Northwest, if this is elsewhere, my info may not be 100% accurate.
thanks for the info, yeah i am in the PNW. Seems like I am only seeing the flying ones, and no worker ants or sawdust like you said. Based on the fact they were coming in under my front door last year, I am gonna hope they're just coming in from outside again >_> weird they are under my oven though
wait wtf these ants live 7+ years? thats crazy theyre so little