Black-backed meadow ant  (Formica pratensis)

This is a large ‘wood ant’, and resembles the more common southern wood ant Formica rufa. The thorax shows some red colouration, but generally this species is much darker than its related species. The abdomen is dark brown to black and the whole insect is covered in fine hairs.

This ant is widespread across Europe but is declining across the whole of its range. In the UK it has only been recorded from a small area around Bournemouth and Wareham in Dorset. It has not been seen there since 1988. There is however, a population on a cliff-top site on the Channel Islands.

The black-backed meadow ant is a species associated with dry heathland or meadow land that have banks or verges in warm, sunny and sheltered locations.

As this ant has always been rare in Britain, little is known about its life cycle. It is known that the ants’ nests tend to be isolated from one another and have a single or very few queens. Nest mounds are small in comparison to other species of wood ant, and are constructed from small twigs, grasses and straw. The winged queens and males develop in the nest in early summer, and again, later in August or September.

Lowland heathlands have been under threat as a habitat for most of the last century. With such a restricted range, the black-backed meadow ant has proved very vulnerable to the loss of its habitat. Urban development around Bournemouth has removed much of the Dorset heath, and encroachment of scrub on the remaining heaths has reduced the amount of suitable ground for nest sites. It is also thought that the invasion of the more competitive southern wood ant (Formica rufa) has contributed to the disappearance of Formica pratensis.

This species is listed as a priority species in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UK BAP), and is included in English Nature’s Species Recovery Programme (SRP). As the ant has not been seen since 1988 on its last recorded site, Morden Bog National Nature Reserve, it may be that it is now extinct as a British species.

Information supplied by English Nature
www.english-nature.org.uk and authenticated by Bryan Pinchen (independent ecologist).