Hello y’all from South Carolina! My name is Arroavantho aka Arro and I’m a newfound ant enthusiast and medical student. Currently a resident of Columbia, SC but soon to be in Florence, SC, I’m writing this journal to chronicle all my current ants.
In general, my personal policies on my ant-keeping & on maintaining this journal:
1) I only collect and keep ants found in the state of South Carolina. If it’s on my list, I found it inside the state lines.
2) I am not presently keeping invasive ant species as I might be moving to a different state in the near future, so releasing the ants I find must be an option. There are two exceptions to this. One is Tetramorium immigrans because it is naturalized to the US and, to be frank, would be nicer to see on a sidewalk than invicta. Two is Brachyponera chinensis because no one has apparently done it as far as I’ve found, and I kind of want to be the first!
3) I also do not keep parasite species because I don't have time to find host brood for them.
4) Each time a newly collected ant queen survives a week in my care, I will create a special post for her introducing her! This will include the queen’s name, ID number, species, date of capture, and any notes so far.
5) Any time I might collect a queen that has already produced brood, I will post her without the 1 week waiting period.
6) Each week, usually Sunday, I will make a new post with a progress report on all my current queens and on new finds. I will try my best to keep up but as stated before I'm a med student, so I am also VERY BUSY.
7) Should any of my fledgling colonies reach a size that I can move them into a formicarium, I will create a new, separate ant journal especially for them and link it to their old post in this thread! I will only do this if I intend on keeping the species. Species I elect to trade or release will not get a special thread.
8) I may elect to not check certain queens every week. Skittish queens like Crematogaster might be one example.
9) Upon death, release, or giving away of a colony, I will note it in the log and in this first post.
10) Queen ID numbers are an internal thing that I use to keep track of when I caught a queen. They all start with Q, and the first four numbers will be the year caught. The latter 3 will be the collection number. Gaps in the numbering system indicate that there were intervening caught queens that either died or I released.
Now that we got all that out of the way, let’s introduce the queens, shall we?
- Q2017002: Cayce (Crematogaster cf. cerasi)
- Q2018020: Bitsy (Brachymyrmex patagonicus)
- Q2018022: Scarlett (Camponotus chromaiodes)
- Q2018023: Hestia (Temnothorax texanus)
- Q2018025: Lotte (Colobopsis cf. obliqua)
- Q2018027: Roos (Colobopsis cf. obliqua)
- Q2018028: Maud (Colobopsis cf. obliqua)
- Q2018030: Billie (Nylanderia sp.)
- Q2018034: Demeter (Pheidole cf. bicarinata)
- Q2018038: Emily (Camponotus pennsylvanicus)
- Q2018041: Carla (Nylanderia cf. parvula)
- Q2018044: Babs (Nylanderia cf. parvula)
- Q2018045: Lucille (Nylanderia cf. vividula)
- Q2018049: Artemis (Pheidole cf. bicarinata)
- Q2018055: Aphrodite (Pheidole cf. bicarinata)
- Q2018056: Hera (Pheidola cf. bicarinata)
- Q2018057: Winifred (Dorymyrmex bureni)
- Q2018058: Adelaide(Dorymyrmex bureni)
- Q2018059: Athena (Pheidole cf. metallescens)
- Q2018062: Lieke (Colobopsis impressa)
- Q2018063: Flora (Camponotus floridanus)
- Q2018064: Hecate (Pheidole navigans)
- Q2018065: Saar (Colobopsis cf. obliqua)
- Q2018067: Jackie (Nylanderia cf. vividula)
- Q2018068: Bonnie (Nylanderia cf. vividula)
- Q2018069: Sunny (Nylanderia cf. vividula)
- Q2018070: Gertrude (Dorymyrmex bureni)
- Q2018071: Josephine (Dorymyrmex bureni)
- Q2018072: Berry (Nylanderia parvula)
- Q2018073: Cori (Temnothorax cf. curvispinosus)
- Q2018074: Nancy (Lasius brevicornis)
- Q2018075: Summermist (Solenopsis cf. pergandei)
- Q2018076: Brioche (Brachymyrmex depilis)
- Q2018077: Nike (Pheidole navigans)
(List edited 7/20/18)
As my log general log for today, 6/3/2018, I will simply report that as of Friday the following queens are in these situations. I am not messing with them right now, especially as in a week I will need to move them to a new city (still in South Carolina mind, so perfectly legal). When I get there, I’ll have a new thermostat so that my heating cable won’t fry my ants. I will be away next Sunday, so the update journal will be a little behind, but I’ll hope to post general introductions for those newly found queens before then. If any of them aren’t given a full Intro post, that means they died, so only the ones likely to actually lay end up in the journal. Saves me a lot of writing doing that.
Now, hang tight while I put in posts for each of my currently tubed ants!
Edited by Arroavantho, August 5 2018 - 5:26 AM.