On the Larval Morphology of some Messor Ants

This dataset contains raw images of fixed ant larval specimens of the species Messor barbarus and Messor himalayanus, collected from different localities in temperate countries.
- Nests of Messor himalayanus (Forel, 1902) (n=5 nests with different development stages, including specimens from all larval stages) were collected from underneath stones around the village of Wayil (34.27°N, 74.80°E; 1678 m above sea level) in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India. The nests were manually inspected to collect any larvae into 70% alcohol.
- Larvae of M. barbarus were obtained from lab-reared nests originally collected from Sorbas, Spain (37.50°N, 2.07°W) which had been held in the laboratory for about 10 years; these colonies were queenright, and not producing alates, meaning all the photographed larvae were from female workers. The larvae of M. barbarus observed for this study were all mature larvae (i.e. the last instar, likely a 3rd instar).