[5] It is found in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine.

Eusocial insects are characterized by cooperative care of young among members of a colony, distinct caste systems where some individuals breed and most individuals are sterile helpers, and overlapping generations so mother, adult offspring and immature offspring are all living at the same time.

[3] Red wood ants exhibit all of these characteristics, with queens and males that make up the reproductive caste and sterile female workers that aid in brood care and colony maintenance.

F. polyctena’s high proportion of worker sterility indicates a strict obligate polygynous colony structure that most likely allows for a stable unicoloniality, or the cooperation of several nests.

However, if foragers are lost or die, other workers from the nest can replace them, indicating some flexibility in designated roles within the colony.

Beye, Neumann and Moritz conducted a study where pairs of ants from different nest were introduced to each other to see if they fought, tolerated or avoided one another.

Beye, Neumann and Moritz believe that these genetic cues act to keep nest colonies separate in homogenous environments that offer no other nestmate recognition strategies.

When ants come across a specific pheromone, they approach the source with jaws wide open, as if confronting a threat.

Specifically in F. polyctena, these chemical alarm signals elicit a response not only within the nest, but along foraging paths.

This is believed to either remove pathogens from the ant that could cause such an immune response, or act as a "social vaccination".

Aubert and Richard proposed this social vaccination model, where they argue that if fellow nestmates groom an infected ant, they will be exposed to small amounts of the pathogens or molecules that could trigger an immune response within the healthy individuals.

These wars occur when food is scarce, usually during the spring months, so that the colonies can effectively feed a new generation of ants.

Spring wars allow the colonies to produce new generations consisting mainly of reproductives (queens and males) rather than workers.

[11] Haccou and Hemerik studied the effects of the cinnabar moth larvae (Tyria jacobaeae) distribution on predation by F. polyctena.

Essentially, the outer layer of nests consists of pine needles, sap and buds, that absorbs a large amount of solar radiation.

The inner core of the nest consists of mostly twigs that act like a thermal "sponge" into which external heat is funneled.

Dry, exposed F. polyctena nests have higher temperatures during the evening, but lose heat slowly throughout the night.

When the workers return in the evening, they have high body temperatures from foraging in the sun that warm the interior of the nest.