8 replies to this topic

[Deia]

 

This is my first proper recording of my ants so I thought I would share it.

 

Can you guess what the 2 species are in the video? I'm pretty convinced that the dark spindly ones with the relaxed gait are Aphaenogaster, but a friend of mine thinks they're also Myrmica.

 

The insect they're eating is a wild cricket I found.

 

If you pay attention, you may notice that there's an ant with 1 antenna. This one consistently exhibits bullying behaviours towards the other species, sometimes dragging them to the trash pile or cramming them in the water feeder. I've noticed that only a few members of the colony seem to even pay attention to the guests.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

I think you're right, the black ones look like Aphaenogaster occidentalis to me. This is fascinating to me; I knew Aphaenogaster were mild mannered, but I always thought Myrmica would attack and sting intruders into their territory. Are both colonies complete with queens, and how long have they been living together?

[Antennal_Scrobe]

In the future, you should probably feed your ants feeder insects from the pet store, scrambled/fried eggs, or cultured fruit flies. Wild insects (and produce, like apples) can have pesticides built up inside them. Any given food item is probably fine, but it only takes one bad one to kill your whole colony. 

[Deia]

I think you're right, the black ones look like Aphaenogaster occidentalis to me. This is fascinating to me; I knew Aphaenogaster were mild mannered, but I always thought Myrmica would attack and sting intruders into their territory. Are both colonies complete with queens, and how long have they been living together?

Only the Myrmica have a queen. I found these Aphaenogaster workers as brood under a rock. I collected some and gave a bit to each of my colonies. The Myrmicas were the only species to accept the brood as something to raise. All the adult workers were raised by the Myrmicas.

[AntsDakota]

You should try introducing an Aphaenogaster queen to them sometime if you find one. That would be interesting. You should introduce her to the Aphaenogaster workers alone first, however, and leave them for a few days before letting the Myrmica have a look.

[Deia]

You should try introducing an Aphaenogaster queen to them sometime if you find one. That would be interesting. You should introduce her to the Aphaenogaster workers alone first, however, and leave them for a few days before letting the Myrmica have a look.

Yeah ideally I want to create a true mixed colony with a queen for each species, I'm not so sure that method will work though. I was able to achieve this because all these ants have the same colony scent, which is the primary factor for threat detection. I have also been working on methods for introducing established colonies together. I'm thinking that if I hibernate 2 different queens together, the cold might slow them down too much to injure each other. I've already been successful in housing Camponotus modoc and Camponotus novaeboracencis majors from wild colonies together, so I'm betting it's doable with queens.

[Antkid12]

Nice video!

[TechAnt]

I bet if you got a worker and rubbed a new Queen with its scent gently (not killing the worker) it could help, but what do I know. Your venturing into a very interesting and unexplored territory in ant keeping. This is similar to parasitic introductions, but most of it is completely bizarre and new thing to be discovered. If you were to do this successfully, you could make antkeeping history, you really need to keep going with the project, it may break new records, and new possibilities. I mean, if this is not specific to the colony and ants you have, and some trigger that causes this, there could be a way to have many multi-queen multi-species colonies. Who knows, but this may be all theories. If it becomes true though, there could be more then imagining these colonies, but actually keeping them.

[AntsDakota]

 

You should try introducing an Aphaenogaster queen to them sometime if you find one. That would be interesting. You should introduce her to the Aphaenogaster workers alone first, however, and leave them for a few days before letting the Myrmica have a look.

Yeah ideally I want to create a true mixed colony with a queen for each species, I'm not so sure that method will work though. I was able to achieve this because all these ants have the same colony scent, which is the primary factor for threat detection. I have also been working on methods for introducing established colonies together. I'm thinking that if I hibernate 2 different queens together, the cold might slow them down too much to injure each other. I've already been successful in housing Camponotus modoc and Camponotus novaeboracencis majors from wild colonies together, so I'm betting it's doable with queens.

 

Well, I said put the queen with the colony's Aphaenogaster workers as to take on their scent before introducing them to the Myrmica. I've had plenty of success with same-species queen introductions.