Sorry I haven't updated in so long, I kinda got uninterested in ants. Just so everyone knows the rest of the latipes died in diapause

Sorry man

On an anting trip to a sand prairie 1 or 2 weeks ago I collected a 2 queen, 100 or so worker formica obscuripes colony. I moved them into a formisquarium XL and put a heating cable on them, so far they don’t forage much but that’s probably because they don’t have larvae yet.

Images:

 

Is it just me or do those queens look a bit smaller than what they should be? I thought obscuripes queens would be similar to oreas queens? Size wise that is

Is it just me or do those queens look a bit smaller than what they should be? I thought obscuripes queens would be similar to oreas queens? Size wise that is

Obscuripes queens are quite small compared to some other Formica, their largest workers can be the same size/as large as their queens.

 

Is it just me or do those queens look a bit smaller than what they should be? I thought obscuripes queens would be similar to oreas queens? Size wise that is

Obscuripes queens are quite small compared to some other Formica, their largest workers can be the same size/as large as their queens.

 

Did not know that. Interesting

Also quick little update, the obscuripes have larvae now and became much more active and aggressive in their foraging behaviors.

I love being able to see behaviors change like that while keeping ants. It's so interesting

Pupae and new egg batches 

 

 

I just love rufa group colonies

I caught an interjectus queen and haven’t been able to get her proper hosts for about 2 weeks now, but i finally got tons of americanus pupae and callows.

(sorry for the crappy pictures)

Here’s all the hosts the queen will be getting if she survives, there’s a lot of pupae hidden throughout the dirt so there’s more then there seems to be.

Nice! Hope they accept her!

I cleaned out one of my minihearths and moved the interjectus with the rest of the host pupae in there, so far all is going well and they’re feeding the queen. However when i first dumped them into the outworld a few workers tried to kill the queen but once she made it into the nest they started behaving normally again.

I find it's very interesting when that happens to any parasitic queen. Good to see they stopped their aggression towards her!

The queen started laying eggs about 2 weeks ago now and there’s a pretty large egg pile, and nearly all of the host americanus workers have eclosed.

GREAT! Good job!

I noticed that you kinda got burnt out on ants / got tired of them as you mentioned in post 61 but got interested in them again? That's good to see.

I'm still new to ants and not too familiar with the 'parasitic' ant types that people mentioned, but I do plan to read more into it.

Liking the posted pictures! Thanks for sharing!