Insect and Spider Identification: CLOSED: Underground bug nest , 1 by Twincol

Twincol wrote:
Suunto, thanks so much for the references and information. I met with the horticultural staff at the University of California, Cooperative Extension - Fresno County, locally, and after spending a couple of days freaking out over her suggestion that I had termites, received word from the local
University of California - Kearney Agricultural Center entomologist familiar with our local bug population. He, thankfully, validated your reference to ants as follows:

Quoting:The photos are of ants. I suspect grey field ant. They include pupae and larvae and adult. If in wood, they could be carpenter ants. They are not nearly as damaging as termites, but will hollow rotten wood.

And, as you can see, there are ants crawling about in the root in the second photo. The involved root is one which has been separated from its origins and is, in fact, rotting. Interestingly, I can now see that there are a number of colonies covering the nearby ground in other similarly separated roots and you can spot them and their paths by just seeing the holes with the worker castes moving in and out. If I am not mistaken, the photo below shows the pile of sawdust or bug poop piling up (gotta love macro cameras). What may not be obvious in this photo is that the underlayment soil is grey, while the pile is a bright "sawdust-colored."

And the following photo shows, a bit ambiguously to this novice's eye, one of the worker bees . . . er, ants.

Linda