54 replies to this topic

[ponerinecat]

I dug around a rock after finding a orange hypoponera worker, and viola! a colony. no queen though. I noticed they nest differently, spreading out instead of the usual H. opacior central chamber.

[ponerinecat]

the H. opacior are eating their cocoons. It seems I gave them too many and they are culling the population.

[ponerinecat]

I see some cocoon skin in the nest, but no new workers.

[ponerinecat]

tons of new workers. The instant the work force rose the queens reverted back to staying in the nest. also laid a large batch of eggs.

[NickAnter]

Could the orange ones be H. punctatissima?   They could also be opaciceps.  You should put one under a microscope if you have one.  If not, send a worker to someone who does.  Then you can figure out what species they are.

[ponerinecat]

Could the orange ones be H. punctatissima?   They could also be opaciceps.  You should put one under a microscope if you have one.  If not, send a worker to someone who does.  Then you can figure out what species they are.

This is just me, but I generally don't really care about the species. As long as I get the general behaviors and know how to keep them I don't really care for any other information on their taxonomy. Of course, if its a new species, that's an entirely different story.

 

They also died off with only 2 visible workers, so not really concerned with them. They did dig huge tunnel systems spanning the entire container, though.

Edited by ponerinecat, June 9 2019 - 9:40 AM.

[NickAnter]

These can fly in the morning. One landed at my feet at school at 8:05 in the morning. Sadly, it diednin a dirt filled test tubes which was all I had. Probably pesticides. I never knew they were daytime flyers.

[ponerinecat]

I've only ever seen alates in the day. Found a small elongate orange alate when I moved here, drowned in honey. I had no idea there were predatory ants.

[ponerinecat]

Seem to have laid new eggs. It's hard to tell with all the cocoon shreds. The workers constantly circle around the edge, like an ant mill.

[ponerinecat]

will be gone for four weeks in china, so no updates for a while. Hope they pull through.

[ponerinecat]

this colony has officially died.

[ponerinecat]

Found another colony, 4-6 ergatoid queens. I feel like an alate queen estabalishes colonies and then is overtaken by her ergatoid daughters. This means that Hypoponera colonies can last forever. I maved them into a container of white marine sand.

[NickAnter]

I forgot to mention the ones where I live, forage in the open, during the morning and evening. Therefore not entirely subterranean. I hope they fly again in fall.

Edited by NickAnter, August 18 2019 - 10:22 AM.

[ponerinecat]

They drink sugar water! So they are not entirely predatory.

[NickAnter]

So jealous of your colony! Also, nice onservation! I really want to succesfully raise a colony from a single queen.

[Unfrozen]

omg i live in Canada I'm so jealous of your guys ants

[ponerinecat]

Giving these away, already on order. So sad to see these go, best colony I've had.

[ponerinecat]

Old observations: ant larvae are accepted as food, as are large insects, even small mealworms (dead, of course)

[ponerinecat]

So the buyer never confirmed his purchase, I still have them. I have observed a rescue bahaviour. Two workers got stuck under the pane of plexiglass on their nest and 3-4 ants began digging at the site. They excavated wood from around the workers. they eventually got a tunnel big enough to have a worker crawl in and pull the trapped ants out. The trapped ants were cleaned and then left to their own devices. They have ignored the tunnel and stopped digging after the rescue was complete.

[Vendayn]

I got Hypoponera opacior today, it'll be my first actual attempt at keeping them. Dunno if I got fertile queens though, but I got a few alates+alate brood. Maybe I got ergatoid queens, but they look too similar to workers for my eyes to tell the difference. But if not, hopefully they'll mate with each other.

 

The ones here actively forage on the surface once the colony gets to a decent size. The colony I got numbered 50+ workers inside the colony not including foragers. So quite a large colony. They were eating a large dragonfly leg, which is how I knew they were there.