63 replies to this topic

[Loops117]

nah, they've yet to have a single issue with the tubing.

[Loops117]

Just got back from an 11 day rustic backpacking trip across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Did pretty good I might add. Found 6 fresh queens, caught a flight on a small species, and brought home about 8 colonies in Acorns. Some are starting off with only brood and 1-5 queens. Others are complete working colonies. Now, before anyone has a fit about how many acorn ant colonies i brought home, just know I saved many many more from the trash/firepit. Don’t cry. I will more than likely need help with IDs for most of these queens. I'm not going to double post the same pictures in the ID section.

 

Pictures will have possible IDs with them.

 

Aphaenogaster sp. ??? 6mm length

 

Formica fuscia ??? 10mm length

 

Lasius sp? 6mm Length

 

Not sure, maybe a small Lasius species? 4mm Length

 

This queen popped out of an acorn with 5 or 6 more queens in it. 5mm Length

 

 

Here's a some of the queens i caught the night of the flight. 0 clue on what they could be. 2~3mm length

 

Some of the acorn ants.

 

Note these are red and black, and about 1mm larger than the yellow/golden species. I also found an all black, with a flat black thorax. Same body shape and size as these guys.

 

 

Also did some work in my garage and put a bug cabinet up when i got home so I could take the ants out of my cupboards in the laundry room. Since I had almost all of my collection together, I took a fertile head count. Not including the queens I caught during the flight over the past week, I have 49 fertile queens with either a pile of brood, or workers/colony. Pretty happy about that.

 

Here's the cabinet.

I have a couple plans for this cabinet. Going to paint the inside of one of the sides with blackout paint. The cabinet sits next to my workstation in my man cave, so i will be putting holes through the side of the cabinet with tubes running in and out for all of my personal colonies. This way all of my nests are together, and i can place outworlds anywere i want.

 

Thank you for looking.

[Loops117]

I would also like to note that some of the black ants that came out of an acorn gave off the EXACT same smell as my T.sessile when smushed. Idk if this is exclusive to just T.sessile, i just noticed this when i smushed the infidels.

[spider_creations]

Wow awesome finds I have always wanted to find and keep acorn ants but I don't know if the are in Arizona. BTW do you have a youtube channel Becuase I think I saw your video on you ants

[Saftron]

I'm not the best at id'ing but in my opinion #1 looks like Aphaenogaster sp. and #2 Is probs f. Fusca

[SaintDrake]

I could be wrong but #4 looks like Lasius latipes to me. I live in Michigan and just found one recently as well. 

[dspdrew]

Nice post. You got some nice finds there. The one that smells like Tapinoma sessile probably is Tapinoma sessile.

[Loops117]

Thank you guys for the feedback, and the help with IDs.

 

 

The one that smells like Tapinoma sessile probably is Tapinoma sessile.

 

But, i think they look nothing like my T.sessile which i smell checked for an ID. Starting to rethink this smell thing. Gonna check again within the next could of videos, then i'll take videos.

 

 

Edit: damnit drew. I'm 90% positive 2 of these acorn colonies are T.sessile. Along with some of the acorns with only queens. They look exactly like T.sessile queens. fack

Edited by Loops117, August 22 2016 - 7:06 PM.

[kellakk]

Wow, you got lots of cool ants. I think the small queens you got from a flight may be Temnothorax sp. The third, yellowish-brown queen reminds me of Brachymyrmex depilis. I would agree with T. sessile for the multi-queen black ants.

[sgheaton]

Well done! I'm not sure where this counts in levels of success..... but to me it looks like you've done really well! I look forward to reading/seeing about these as they develop. 

[Loops117]

Hey guys. It’s been a minute since my las update.

Lately I’ve been gearing up for hibernation. Been mass feeding all of my colonies so they have heavy stomachs for winter. During this feeding period I’ve noticed something about my Crematogaster. Although their nest is bigger with more stages then all of my other nests, it takes considerably longer for them to bring food back to the brood. With all my other colonies, they immediately wrestled the food back to the nest to be eaten by all. My Crematogaster do exactly the opposite. They kill their food right in the outworld, dismember it, then bring it to the nest. My lasius alienus colony has smaller workers, and they’re much much more efficient at wrestling food and bringing it back to the nest still alive then that of my Crematogaster. Actually, it’s funny cuz all my species have different hunting styles. I witnessed a C.pennsylvanicus major stalk and jump on the back of a fruit fly.

 

Not much new to add other than my colonies have been growing larger by the minute (literally).

My Crematogaster colony has been booming. Every time I think she’s gonna slow down egg production, she fills all her caverns again. She has another HUGE batch of eggs as of the last week. I really couldn’t put a number on the amount of workers this queen has. Every time I look, I find more masses of ants chillen in one of the nest stages.

My aphanogasters have slowed down brood production as is ready for hibernation.

My Camponotus colonies are also ready for hibernation. They halted production and have been last lately.

Tetramoriums haven’t slown down much. They’re still super active (or just super spooked every time I visit)

As for the rest of the colonies, they’re doing good. I sold a few off on GAN, and have been making/selling nests with them.

 

My pictures and videos are primarily of my Crematogaster colony. Which I’m proud of.

 

Here's a nice video of my Crematogaster taking on a wave of fruit flies.

 

Video of them draw and quartering their prey.

 

Here's their queen. I spotted a single mite. IDK what to think. I don't think it's anything worry about.

 

And here's my Aphaenogaster eating a fruit fly.

 

 

 

 

 

[T.C.]

Very successful, colony, when i get time I'll have to go through all your videos. Good Job!

[Loops117]

Very successful, colony, when i get time I'll have to go through all your videos. Good Job!

Thank you. They're by far my favorite colony. Hopefully they'll be much much more massive. Should have alates next year aswell.

[Loops117]

Updated my first post with new info.

[T.C.]

Those fruit flies your feeding them, did you catch those or raise them yourself?

[Loops117]

Those fruit flies your feeding them, did you catch those or raise them yourself?

I buy cultures from a local pet shop.

[Loops117]

Hey guys. It’s been a minute since my last update. There’s not too much to talk about since all of my ants are about as cold as drews heart…

So for the time being, I will post about my other bugs. Hope nobody cares.

 

Here is my Centruroides gracilis also known as the Florida Bark Scorpion.

I caught a 2 of these guys, and decided to keep the smallest.

 

This little guy measured in at 10~12mm when caught. I didn’t have much for him to live in, but I did have a prototype that I didn’t have an ant colony for. Turns out it’s a great scorpion setup.

Also, I didn’t want to post anything about this until he ate in captivity. Last night he took down a roach just as big as him.

 

Meet Jarvis.

https://drive.google...QVQ3VmdEWGRhSlE

https://drive.google...GpuZTQ0YU01akZV

Edited by Loops117, November 29 2016 - 6:32 AM.

[ctantkeeper]

Hey guys. It’s been a minute since my last update. There’s not too much to talk about since all of my ants are about as cold as drews heart…

So for the time being, I will post about my other bugs. Hope nobody cares.

 

Here is my Centruroides gracilis also known as the Florida Bark Scorpion.

I caught a 2 of these guys, and decided to keep the smallest.

 

This little guy measured in at 10~12mm when caught. I didn’t have much for him to live in, but I did have a prototype that I didn’t have an ant colony for. Turns out it’s a great scorpion setup.

Also, I didn’t want to post anything about this until he ate in captivity. Last night he took down a roach just as big as him.

 

Meet Jarvis.

https://drive.google...QVQ3VmdEWGRhSlE

https://drive.google...GpuZTQ0YU01akZV

so cool

Btw, that drew roast though lol

Edited by ctantkeeper, November 29 2016 - 6:35 AM.

[Loops117]

It’s been a while since my last update!

All my ants remained in their cabinet, in my unattached-unheated garage with normal day/night temperature fluctuations as it got colder. Some nights reaching a brisk 30 degrees in the cabinet up until they were documented at 20 degrees. I then immediately moved them to a mini fridge inside the house around December 5^th, were they’ve remained at 45 degrees until recently. Unfortunately I had to break some formicariums to fit everyone in the fridge, but it had to be done to keep everyone hibernating.

Due to the extreme cold, I lost (Some leaving behind workers/colonies)

3 C.pennsylvanicus queens

2 C.noveborencis queens

7 Lasius sp. queens

2 F.subsericea queens

1 Brachymyrmex sp. queen.

2 T.sessile queens

And a couple unidentified queens.

I didn’t lose any of my significant colonies, feel like I really lucked out on that one.

This is what's left.

 

 

Earlier last month the girlfriend bought me a new Wine Cooler with digital temp, humidity, etc. Made the move and am really happy with the space I have now.

 

 

Last week sometime I removed a couple queens and colonies out of hibernation for testing purposes.

Removed:

1      Crematogaster cerasi queen.

1      Lasius sp queen

1      Aphaenogaster sp. queen

1      3queen Formica subsericea colony

1      3queen Tapinoma sessile colony

1      Camponotus pennsylvanicus colony

Took my C.pennsylvanicus queen 5 days to wake up, was scary for me as she’s my first queen to colony.

Made a large nest designed for large colonies. Moved my 3queen F.subsericea colony into it, and they seem to enjoy it.

This was taken 5 days after being woken up.

 

 

 

Here’s an image of my C.cerasi queen 5 days after hibernation.

 

 

 

Created some new earrings for myself.

 

 

Lasius sp and Aphaenogaster sp. Sorry picture quality is bad.

 

 

Drank some tea.

 

 

Created something different.

Thanks for looking.

Loops.

[Martialis]

What does cordyceps taste like?