Remember, they are not fusca, but a species in the fusca group. If you have a microscope or a good macro lens you could try to identify them with a key.

I mentioned previously that the fusca group queens and pallidefulva group queens I have are not positively identified to species, I just call them that as shorthand. But I can type Formica cf. fusca going forward so you don't get confused!

Excited about my Camponotus cf. nearcticus queen who now has eggs. She's the only one I've caught and they're not common around my house. I can't say I've ever even seen their workers before.

I mentioned previously that the fusca group queens and pallidefulva group queens I have are not positively identified to species, I just call them that as shorthand. But I can type Formica cf. fusca going forward so you don't get confused!

Formica fusca group would be the proper way to say it I'm pretty sure, as F. cf. fusca would mean you believe them to be F. fusca from my understanding. It's all pretty confusing.

 

Anyway, good luck with the C. cf. nearcticus! I could tell you what the workers look like, but I'll let you find out once she gets them if all goes well. It's more fun that way.

Edited by Kaelwizard, May 27 2021 - 3:44 AM.

It's probably safe to assume that they are subsericea. Post some close up photos and TennesseeAnts can narrow it down for you. He accurately ID'd mine.

 

I mentioned previously that the fusca group queens and pallidefulva group queens I have are not positively identified to species, I just call them that as shorthand. But I can type Formica cf. fusca going forward so you don't get confused!

Formica fusca group would be the proper way to say it I'm pretty sure, as F. cf. fusca would mean you believe them to be F. fusca from my understanding. It's all pretty confusing.

 

Anyway, good luck with the C. cf. nearcticus! I could tell you what the workers look like, but I'll let you find out once she gets them if all goes well. It's more fun that way.

 

According to this post: https://www.formicul...y-and-taxonomy/

cf. means comparable to.

Not sure what happened with the pennsylvanicus queen I moved to the mini hearth but all the workers she started the year with have died. But she has a bunch of brood going so idunno. All the new ones I found this year have eggs and larvae.

Similarly, the last remaining cf. fusca queen I had from last year was up to about 10 workers and is now down to 3. She also has a bunch of brood so we'll see what happens.

The cf. pallidefulva colonies I hooked up to the mini hearths are still living in their dried up test tubes but appear to be doing well, all of them have about doubled their workers since the beginning of the year, each up to around 20.

The three Crematogaster queens from last fall all have workers.



The cf. nearcticus queen should have workers soon.



One tube of P. imparis with two queens has some workers and just a ton of brood, the other tube with three queens developed some mold and they appear to have lost all theirs, so I'll try to move them to a clean tube to start over.

Got some good pics today I thought I'd share.

Here is the cf. pallidefulva queen I found in May of last year, starting to take off now.



They have a pretty good brood pile going, I may soon sacrifice one and see if I can properly identify the species.

The P. imparis pair have an impressive brood pile going. Is that normal for them? The trio that lost all their brood and had green mold growing in their tube have been forcefully moved to a new tube and have some eggs now.



All three of the Crematogaster queens I found last September are doing well. I have ordered some bifurcated mini hearths for them and the P. imparis.



I don't know why but I'm particularly excited about the cf. nearcticus queen. I guess because she seems rare, being the only one I've ever seen. But she's up to three pupae.



Here is the slew of C. pennsylvanicus from last month, all looking good with pupae.



Hoping to have better results than last year. I won't be feeding any insects caught outdoors, and I'm also feeding a lot more lately than I used to. they've been mostly getting flightless fruit flies lately, as I've been trying to keep my culture from crashing!

Before I was erring on the side of underfeeding to avoid buildups of garbage and mold. But having moved 5 colonies into mini hearths at this point, I can feed them more than they need and they can take what they want, so that has been nice. And it helps me gauge what the colonies still in tubes need.

Yup. Underfeeding is probably the biggest mistake most folks make. The mold phobia is way overblown. All my setups are nasty, but the ants are fat and happy!

Edited by ANTdrew, June 28 2021 - 2:44 AM.

The C. pennsylvanicus queen from last year that had done the best has died. She was up to about 25 workers last summer, but feeding insects from outdoors killed about half of those and triggered the overall decline of the colony. She started with about a dozen workers this spring which all slowly died off. She did have some brood including pupae when she ran out of workers so I thought she might rebound, but she was apparently eating them and eventually ran out.

The good news is I have way too many new pennsylvanicus queens this year with brood going so I plan to do much better.

Right now I have 5 other mini hearths occupied. I'll try to get a pic of the collection. There are three cf. pallidefulva from last year with around two dozen workers each and doing well, one cf. subsericea from last year that had experienced a decline this spring but is back up to 13 workers I believe, and lastly the cf. subsericea I found in May. I had been referring to those as fusca group but more and more I believe them to be subsericea.

Two of the cf. pallidefulva colonies have their tubes hooked up to the mini hearths but have yet to move in despite their tubes being almost dry and out in the open with plenty of light. They are extremely stubborn. In the past week I have seen workers from one of those colonies congregating over the water tower, so hopefully they'll move in soon.

The cf. subsericea queen I found in May was in a small test tube that fit into the outworld area of the mini hearth. Her she only had two workers out of her first brood. I wanted to try getting them into the mini hearth earlier on, so I set their tube in the outworld with the cotton stopper removed. They were staying in the tube and had taken the fruit flies I fed them in there, but after a few days decided to move in to the hearth. They have some larvae going so hopefully they will be good to go.



Another interesting tidbit. In 2019 before I had collected any queens or had any proper formicaria, I had collected a cf. pallidefulva queen with a dozen workers from a colony in my back yard. The queen was eventually torn apart, so I have just been feeding the workers until they die out. At some point this spring their tube flooded and killed a bunch of them, but two workers still remain, one original and one smaller worker from while I had them in captivity. I don't expect them to last much longer, but the interesting takeaway is that the lifespan of the workers is at least two years.

Yesterday when I came home I noticed a brood raid going down in my front yard.

I am pretty sure what I have living in my yard (amongst other species) is a population of F. pallidefulva, some F. subsericea, and another Formica species that steals brood from both of the former two.

It is interesting to watch, but also a little sad. I watched the leading edge of the raid until they reached their target. I saw some of the cf. pallidefulva retreating with whatever brood they could carry, and I saw a queen in the grass nearby as well. She must've been from that colony and escaped. So hopefully the colony can recover.

Then I had an idea, I'd steal the brood back from the thieves! Finders keepers, right? So for a test I caught four of them on their way back to the nest with brood. I put them in the fridge for a few minutes so they dropped their booty. Not so tough now, eh? Then I gave the three pupae and one larva to one of my captive cf. pallidefulva colonies. They appeared to accept it.

On the night of July 4 I was laying in bed reading the forum and felt something like a mosquito on my knee. Just before slapping it I looked to see what it was, and I'll be damned if it wasn't a tiny queen ant! It must have hitched a ride in the house on the dog. According to the identification thread peeps it appears to be a Temnothorax.

I checked on her last night and she still had her wings but appears to have laid an egg. We'll see what happens. Not much info on them. Are these claustral?

Fully claustral, yes.

This afternoon when I got home around noon I saw a queen on the driveway. Looked like another cf. pallidefulva, which I have plenty of, so I let her go. Turns out they were all over the place! I was out looking for awhile to see if there were other species out and at one point saw three on my driveway at once! I probably checked on about a dozen of them but let them all go.

Edit: okay I did keep one, just because she still had her wings and although I have a half dozen of them I've never seen them with their wings! Maybe she'll keep them?



But then I found something different!



The parasitic formica that I have watched raid the cf. pallidefulva nests were out! I had seen alates last year thinking about flying, but I missed them. Maybe for the better since I am actually equipped this year with some colonies from which I can harvest some brood.

I was able to catch 5 of them, one is in a tube but the other are in portion containers because I am out of tubes. I think that means I have too many ants 😁



I gave them some sugar water but none of them appeared interested. Hopefully tomorrow I can see about giving them some pupae.

Edited by Polyacanthus, July 10 2021 - 8:56 PM.

Last night I stole 3 pupae from one of my cf. pallidefulva colonies and put them in a tube with one of the parasitic queens. She appeared to be afraid of them. This morning I took a look and she was hugging the cotton on the opposite end from the pupae.

All of the queens I collected still have their wings, I don't know if that's an indicator of their readiness? Do they shed their wings before entering a target nest?

Yesterday I was able to steal some more pupae from another cf. pallidefulva colony and gave the above pictured queen a couple more, and some to two other of these parasitic queens. Today when I checked the above pictured queen had removed a couple of her wings and appears to be tending to a few of the pupae. One of the other queens was belly up, and the other seems to be ignoring hers.

So I retrieved the pupae from the dead queen and donated them to a cf. pallidefulva colony that lost their queen over the winter so are just a group of three workers. They appeared to accept them, we'll see how that goes.

In other news, thinking I should break the journal up into separate species journals since I have different projects going and readers may only be particularly interested in certain parts pertaining to species in which they are interested. Suggestions?

I divide my journals by genus. While camping, I saw a slave raid going on, so I followed your lead and stole back some pupae for my subsericea colony. They loved the gift.

Hah, nice!

The Temnothorax has been moved to her very own journal here: https://www.formicul...hus-temnothorax

Spinning off the parasitic Formica to their own journal here: https://www.formicul...mica-pergandei/