4 replies to this topic

[StayLoki]

Is anyone crazy enough on here to keep a velvet ant?? 🐜

Yes I know they're not really ants, but a wingless wasp.. I'm just so intrigued by them- I wanna see your journal or pics!!

~Amanda

[Chicken_eater100]

i would, but they're short lived, and it's impossible to breed them in captivity. 

[123LordOfAnts123]

They’re actually fairly long lived for solitary wasps; I’ve had wild caught females of larger species last as long as 11 months. They like it warm and dry. They will feed relatively often on sugar water or the juices of cut fruit. They’re extremely active, and can make interesting and attractive captives, but yes, they’re impossible to breed unless you have easy access to the brood and food stores of ground nesting bees/wasps, of which velvet ants are species specialists.

[StayLoki]

Yea I figured that was a huge gap in their husbandry success with the egg-laying in bee/wasp nests thing. .. I would still love to keep one in a 20gallon or something.
I need to move to new mexico, where I'll probably promptly get stung by one and perish

[neoponera]

i have kept them

 

they just don't seem to like captivity

 

mine ran around in circles her whole life