So... these ants. did not expect the first ants to see in the middle east to be Iridomyrmex*es.
Regarding the *"invasive" I. anceps records outside of Australia, specimens from Indomalayan regions turned out to be separate native lineages while New Zealand populations were later reidentified to be suchieri. Now only a handfull of localities are left with introduced anceps records, and the Iridomyrmex I've found in Dubai were keyed out to be suchieri and I personally think all other records could also actually be not anceps

They seemed to be enjoying the similar warm dry weather, with no other dolichoderin to compete. Picture qualities suck as I wasn't really patient enough to wait for good shots and cropped out from far focused pictures.

Was being carried around by a Formica fusca worker. I first thought it was prey, but when I scooped them up I noticed the beetle was alive. They stayed together for over 24 hours without any aggression. Apparently these are specialized myrmecophiles

Dead Nomamyrmex esenbeckii army-ant major engaged in battle with dead Atta texana worker. I found 6 dead esenbeckii army ants on top of a large Atta texana mound (the 6 dead workers in third photo), and one of these esenbeckii majors had died while battling an Atta texana worker (first 2 photos). I had written before that I started to look for dead Nomamyrmex on top of Atta texana mounds, and this is the second time I found Nomamyrmex army ants associated with Atta texana. I searched during two days about 40 Atta texana mounds carefully for the presence of dead Nomamyrmex, and this is the only Nomamyrmex I found among these 40 Atta texana mounds.

Interestingly, this Nomamyrmex observation today was only about 70 meter distant from where I had found dead Nomamyrmex a year earlier in March 2022, at that time on top of a near-abandoned Atta texana mound (see here https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/108890321). It appears that a single Nomamyrex esenbeckii colony may have hounded the Atta texana at this site repeatedly (maybe continuously?) during the last year.

I used the Watkins 1977 & 1982 keys to ID this to esenbeckii (e.g., post-occipital sulcus present).

elevation 16 meter
observation UGM230209-16

First Proceratium I've ever seen in NY! Very exciting find for me to add to the Ithaca list. One worker, under large semi-embedded flat rock
Looks like crassicorne? Really having trouble keying this definitively.

Workers were found in a makeshift termite bait made of a PVC pipe with holes drilled into the side, it was buried in the ground (the top of it was surface level so you could access the inside and a stone was placed on top to act as a cover) and pine wood was put inside, the wood was rotting when I checked it. Termites (Reticulitermes sp.) were present and workers were seen walking in the tunnels that the termites made in the wood. Workers were also seen on the inside and bottom of the PVC pipe.

Very happy to have found these and definitely wasn't expecting to.

Mycetosoritis hartmanni colonies are very abundant throughout the Coastal Sand Plain in South Texas. Hartmanni nests are easiest to find here in March and April, when colonies seem to do most of the excavation during the year. I post photos of two different hartmanni colonies, showing a volcano-type mound where the nest entrance is in a shallow depression in the center of the excavation crater, and the more common pointy mound-type ("turriform crater" sensu Wheeler 1907) where the nest entrance is at the apex of a steep mound. Both types of mounds measure about 4-10 centimeter across at the base in mature mounds, and the mound shapes shown here are characteristic for hartmanni (there is no other ant species here that produces these kinds of mounds; some Dorymyrmex mounds can look similar, but Dorymyrmex mounds are typically asymmetrical in shape, with more excavate to one side of the nest entrance, whereas hartmanni mounds are always symmetrical when viewed from above). Hartmanni colonies have been consistently very abundant in this area since I first collected ants here 20 years ago.

Whereever I have found hartmanni in sandy areas in South Texas, I have also found closeby two other fungus-growing ant species, Mycetomoellerius turrifex and Atta texana. The distribution of hartmanni further north in Texas is more spotty, but always in white-sand soil.

The correct spelling is hartmanni (Wheeler 1907), not hartmani as currently used at iNAT.

observation UGM220406-00
elevation 13 meter