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Colony in decaying wood of Pinus log, in open Pinus, Quercus, Ceanothus woodland. Tapinoma sessile was inhabiting the same log, around 2 meters away. No mixing of the workers was observed, but all the T. sessile workers were consistently black. Last image shows mounted specimen.

A single dealate queen was found in a small wash, probably a straggler from a daytime/morning flight. It appears to be the same species as the first phoretica queen found in Arizona, although there are some minor differences in the head proportions (although this may be easily influenced by the angle of photos), hairs (specifically the length and density of hairs on the gaster, and density of hairs on the antennal scapes), as well as the length/shape of the antennal scapes, from what I could find.

Didn't believe my eyes when I first saw it, I never expected that they would actually go this far north. This opens up their range a whole lot, although I do think that they'd still be more common in the south.

Not associated with any other ants, but hyatti, xerophila, and micula are the area's most common (or at least most conspicuous) Pheidole species. P. rhea may also be in the area, but I haven't seen them here yet.

This confirms that Pheidole az05 is trimorphic.

Somewhat common in the area under rocks. The castes of this species seem a little less fluid than tepicana (i.e. more distinct minor, major, supermajor castes, with less in-betweens), but there is definitely still variation.