107 replies to this topic

[Ferox_Formicae]

Ok, thanks. I have seen mostly Crematogaster and Ponera in hollow twigs.

Ponera? I think you're thinking of Pseudomyrmex ejectus as Ponera is a ground dwelling genera.

[TennesseeAnts]

No, I mean Ponera.

[Canadian anter]

I believed Ponera was a purely terrestrial species?

[TennesseeAnts]

Nope. Not where I live. I find them under rocks and in logs with termites in them.

[LIFEsize]

Sadly my queen hasn't laid any eggs after about a month, so I'm assuming she's infertile. I hope your colony continues to grow. This will be a really cool species to see develop. Something cool I read somewhere is that you can put a cork in the entrance of their formicarium, the majors will chew out a hole just the right size to block with their flat heads.

i have been sitting on a tube with two of these for 8 months. One has wings and one shed them when I first got her, however, nothing has happened and I have tried heating them around 80 degrees F and still nothing. I’m going to seperate them into seperate tubes and see if it’s because they’re together. I don’t know if these are mono or poly, but if anyone knows then please inform me.

[Ferox_Formicae]

 

Sadly my queen hasn't laid any eggs after about a month, so I'm assuming she's infertile. I hope your colony continues to grow. This will be a really cool species to see develop. Something cool I read somewhere is that you can put a cork in the entrance of their formicarium, the majors will chew out a hole just the right size to block with their flat heads.

i have been sitting on a tube with two of these for 8 months. One has wings and one shed them when I first got her, however, nothing has happened and I have tried heating them around 80 degrees F and still nothing. I’m going to seperate them into seperate tubes and see if it’s because they’re together. I don’t know if these are mono or poly, but if anyone knows then please inform me.

 

I once found a colony of Colobopsis impressa with 2 queens, so I'd say polygynous.

[ponerinecat]

Nope. Not where I live. I find them under rocks and in logs with termites in them.

yes, but that's still terrestrial. Are the twigs on the ground?

[TennesseeAnts]

I found out those were Brachyponera.

[Ferox_Formicae]

I found out those were Brachyponera.

Ahh, that makes more sense.

[NickAnter]

Update?

[Aaron567]

May 20, 2019

 

Colobopsis impressa flights have been kicking off all over Florida in the past couple weeks, and my part of the state is usually last to get flights of most species relative to the rest of the state. It's been very dry lately and has not rained in over a week, so I had a feeling that I was going to get the first Colobopsis flights as soon as the humidity became a little higher.

 

Last night, the temperature and humidity was more favorable than it had been for a several days, and the first Colobopsis flights happened. There were queens all over the place but I decided to only collect 10 of them because I don't need so many and they'll be flying for a little while anyway. As an experiment, I have two pairs of queens that will be combined.

 

 

 

Out of the 10 queens, one of them is prettier than the rest, and she is the one that happened to shed her wings right after I test tubed her. I've never had a Colobopsis queen shed her wings that fast.

 

Edited by Aaron567, May 20 2019 - 2:44 PM.

[TennesseeAnts]

When will these fly in Middle Tennessee?

[Aaron567]

June 15, 2019

 

The wingless queen has her first pupa, and so does nearly every other C. impressa queen I have now. The two-queen pairs are looking great and I'm looking forward to see if they remain a double queen colony even after nanitics.

 

[TennesseeAnts]

Any tips for this species? I just found a beautiful one of these queens.

[Aaron567]

June 25, 2019

 

One of the pairs got their first nanitic and have a nice-looking group of brood, and three individual queens have gotten their nanitics too. I've had to give most of the queens extra sugar water before their nanitics hatched because by the time they have pupae they're deathly skinny. I wonder if this is just natural selection and if they would've died if they were in the wild right now from running too low on food stores. Their low success rate could be why they have such enormous nuptial flights.

 

[TennesseeAnts]

My queen has shed her wings. How long until nanitics?

[TennesseeAnts]

Update?

[Aaron567]

July 2, 2020

 

Colobopsis impressa has been flying here for the last several weeks, starting in May and finally wrapping up right around now. A few weeks ago I collected more than a dozen of them, most of which were dealates when I collected them. I mostly ignored winged queens at my blacklight, which make up most of the ones I see.

 

This year I want to put in a lot more effort to raise a very successful colony of Colobopsis impressa while using normal 18mm test tubes. I was able to get a colony to majors with little effort, so it shouldn't be overly difficult to grow them to a larger size when there are multiple queens in a colony.

 

Here is one of several 3-queen groups I am currently keeping. They've all been getting nanitics recently and are looking good.

 

[CatsnAnts]

This species is adorable, there’s just something about their flat faces that make them cute.

Edited by CatsnAnts, July 2 2020 - 4:18 PM.

[VenomousBeast]

What time of night do they fly?? I have a blacklight setup with no results yet, but just wondering when I'll get them!