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Jon's Pheidole dentata journal


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#1 Offline jplelito - Posted September 7 2020 - 11:35 AM

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This summer,  I discovered that I have a number of Pheidole species in the yard (central NC Piedmont area).  From June onward I collected a number of these mostly at blacklight at sunset or sunrise (I have 40 or so total incipient nests in vials, cups, etc. but they are almost all of one species I think, P. bicarinata - which flies in small numbers almost every humid night at dusk - the others are much rarer.  At the end of the day, the most exciting one in terms of behavior, growth, and the like, for me – is Pheidole dentata.  So far, aside from this queen, I have six P. bicarinata I will keep (3 each of what appear to be two queen color varieties, to see what's going on there), one alate-but-fertile queen P. tysoni, and one queen P. dentigula of unknown status (she is in a cup of soil - this is the only way I could keep the several of these I found, alive, after learning the hard way about this species and vials - at least for me they need saturated air to survive more than a day or two, which makes sense for an animal that lives in deep shady woods). 

 

I first collected two of these on the morning of June 29th.  This was a crazy ant night - 15 species of ants came to the light.  It was the single best flight-night of summer.

The third female showed up as I was packing up the light setup one morning – July 10th. 

I missed capture of a fourth female on the 18th of July - she flew past me as I was checking the light at around 6:15 AM; I winged her with my hand, but she rolled a bit and kept flying back to the woods.  Tough buggers. 

The first and third queens both met unfortunate ends – the first died in a mold outbreak because I fed her too much and she left a small caterpillar carcass for too long (she had laid over 100 eggs, and the more I fed her, the more she laid.  Lesson learned). The third died in a truly tragic event, wherein while cleaning one of the containers with my son, the queen managed to get herself between the glass and the magnet of a THA mini-hearth just as we closed it – dead.  But, her workers were preserved in EtOH and kindly gave their lives to allow me to key them out.  I had no idea what they were until then – so they did help in that way.  The difference between these animals and all the other Pheidole queens here, which are mostly in the 4-5 mm range, is sheer size - this animal was almost twice as large, at 8mm, and she's robust rather than slender.  Here - compare her on the left to the Aphaenogaster fulva queen on the right, for those of you familiar. 

 

 

Thus, the journal is really about just the one queen who remains.  However, she is doing so well, it’s just as well I only have the one.  I imagine this colony is going to become enormous, and a bit of work to maintain, given the rate at which they are growing and eating.  I have since found a few colonies on my property - based on baiting them out the colonies contain at least 1,000 minor workers each, if not more (very likely more since I cannot imagine all the nest population comes out just for snacks). The nests are nondescript holes in the ground, sometimes a few holes together, with no obvious sign of excavation or trash or... anything.  When you bait them, though - 100s of minors emerge within minutes.   Majors follow for tough-to-chew items like cutworm pupae or big crickets. 

 

Here goes.

 

The queen herself – two mornings after capture. Note already 25+ eggs - an egg-laying machine, this one. 

 

 

Soon, a huge pile of eggs – not as many as her ‘sister’ that passed, but a lot nonetheless. 

 

 

After only 28 days – nanitics.  At this point I moved her into a mini-hearth. 

 

 

Today – one major, 35-40 minors of varying ages, dozens of pupae, larvae, and a pile of 50 or so eggs (not all obvious from this picture):

 

 
A closeup of the queen:
 

 

The neat thing is – this is all at a warm room temperature (my upstairs cool setting is 76F – so June-September the upstairs never gets more than a degree or two cooler than this, but it doesn’t get too much warmer either).  Unlike a lot of other ants, which either live on heat tape, etc., these have promise to do well even in the cooler months, as at least so far they show no sign of slowing down due to the shortening daylight.  This is promising!

 

She needs a name.  Seems a lot of the good mythological ones are taken around here... :)


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#2 Offline Antkeeper01 - Posted September 7 2020 - 12:03 PM

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Maybe Queen Omega because she is the last one. :D


Edited by Antkeeper01, September 7 2020 - 12:21 PM.

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#3 Offline jplelito - Posted September 7 2020 - 2:02 PM

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I like it.  I just found a 5th colony of this species outside.  A cicada carcass on the driveway, covered in both minors and majors of this species, led me about 20 feet into my hedges, where they are swarming out of a barely-noticeable hole under a Nandina bush.  So - she may not be the last one, but likely only a pause until I go hunting them big time in 2021...does that count?  They're still pretty active and hunting proteins!  Impressive how far a fairly tiny ant can travel to forage. 


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#4 Offline ANTdrew - Posted September 7 2020 - 2:46 PM

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You should name her Gurid. I was going to use that name for my P. davisi, but she went up to the great ant hill in the sky.
According to the Viking Sagas, Gurid was the daughter of Alfhild, a shield maiden who commanded a fleet of female pirate ships.

Edited by ANTdrew, September 7 2020 - 2:46 PM.

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"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#5 Offline jplelito - Posted June 23 2021 - 9:44 AM

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Unfortunately this colony met a bad end during the winter - a mite invasion! I’ve seen a few others who have had this experience with various species. Seems I had a few lessons to learn for myself! Flight window on these is wide open now so will BOLO and hopefully update when I find one!

#6 Offline ANTdrew - Posted June 23 2021 - 11:10 AM

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Good to see you back. I hope you have a great season. My Pheidole bicarinata are one year old now and absolutely massive.
"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#7 Offline 123LordOfAnts123 - Posted June 23 2021 - 1:36 PM

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This was Pheidole morrisii by the way, not P. dentata.

#8 Offline jplelito - Posted June 25 2021 - 8:03 AM

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Re: morrisii vs. dentata; I know those nanitics look very yellow, but they darkened to brown/red as they matured after this picture was taken.  The picture does present a bias in color that would make me think P. morrisii too, and I should have thought of that - but when you look under the scope they key as dentata (by my eyeball anyhow).   I think once they were considered as the same species.   However, morrisii in my limited experience occurs much east of my area and I wouldn't expect to find it commonly here.   If anyone knows some specific character that can be used to sight-ID them I would love to hear it.  

 

@ANTDrew - thank you!  Sorry for the long lapse in post.  Kids, family, pandemic, full time job... I think you may empathize.  I will try to be on more now that ant season is in full swing.  I just took a look at your post on bicarinata... I think my reaction was awesome/yikes.  I have a small colony of those I kept from last summer and now I see my future.. gonna need something bigger than the Mini_Hearth I guess.  I have not had heat on mine thus they are far behind yours, but the house is warm now so they may go that way.   I will plan to post a note on those as well.  



#9 Offline jplelito - Posted July 5 2021 - 11:36 AM

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....rebooting...

 

Update 2021 June – (long post fair warning)

 

So, the posts above more or less cover year one of Pheidole for me – only one colony survived the winter, a queen I named Ariel (so named because my son and I actually nabbed her out of the air over my driveway – “aerial” capture, with male attached) at about 7:30 PM on July 18th 2020.  It was overcast and humid and warm, but this is by far the earliest in the evening I have ever seen P. bicarinata fly – usually they come out at dusk at the earliest, more often 9 PM or so. 

 

I kept Ariel (and family) in a THA Mini Hearth at room temp all winter upstairs in my home (so, Nov-Feb 60s-ish, maybe a little warmer on warm days outdoors).  She admittedly did not do much especially when compared to the potential had I heated her – for comparison check out AntDrew’s Phatheads journal.  But, she survived and her family slowly grew – even though the generation time was ~60 days or so, she laid small numbers of eggs and produced a few new workers all winter (notably – no majors; those came all of a sudden in April/May when it warmed up).  This is nice – I want a pet ant that does not sleep for six months, nor do they depend on heat and complicated environmental manipulations.  This species could almost be a centerpiece on the dining room table all year if I understand them right.

Ariel and family now –

 

Ariel with worker 6 28 21

 

Ariel major

 

I don’t want to diverge this post too much from P. dentata, so now I circle back.    

 

I have a new batch (N=15ish depending on how many found their colonies successfully) of P. dentata captured at blacklight (see my recent post on blacklighting for the exact recipe here) between early June and present.  They fly at least once a week, if not more since that time - although for the past week or more the weather has either been cool and dry or hot and overnight storms, so no very recent flights.  There is usually a ‘big’ flight on the first hot humid night after recent significant rain, and then almost always stragglers the night after that.  Some remain alates, others dealate – sometimes many days to a week later, and interestingly, always on the hot humid nights when the species is also flying outside (the ones I keep are in my garage, so they get more or less outside conditions).  Some cue there I don’t fully understand!  I have made my UV setup better, as I mention elsewhere, so perhaps the increased abundance of these animals this year is because I catch more of them; perhaps it is because of some other factor.  With only two years of data in hand, hard to say.  If I’m lucky I’ll keep trapping next year and we’ll see. 

 

Some shots –

 

1st dentata 2
 
pheidole dentata from light
 

I have one female loaded into the (cleaned) THA MMH that the original Omega/Gurid was in (thanks friends for the name suggestions – I owe ANTDrew 5 cents).  I call this one Izsha.

 

Izsha begins 6 28 21
 
Izsha Egg clutch growing 

 

I have several more in condiment cups inside a larger humidor in the garage for observation (and because I don’t have unlimited THA MMHs alas, anyone else with this problem? :o ).  On a whim I also kept four dealates together in a cup – they’re cooperating so far.  Ph. bicarinata would NEVER do this (I’ve tried) – in case anyone is wondering they will slowly chop each other’s legs and antennae off, eat the first to die, and move on until only one (usually terribly injured) queen remains.   Interestingly, when offered scraps, one or more of the dentata queens will collect the item, chew it up, and then regurgitate to the others.  The queens are slightly differently marked in terms of the melanization on the abdomen and it is not the same generous animal each time.  Interesting to watch this.  I wonder if this is the ‘open ground form’ that is noted for being polygynous at the northern end of the range (Wilson, 2003) I wouldn’t personally say I am at the northern range limit (100s of miles south of that in fact) but perhaps the polygynous form is more common than was known.  Or, maybe it’s an artifact of captivity.  Who knows.  I do observe this – there are P. dentata-ish in the woods-edge behind my house as well as in my front landscaping.  Anecdotally, those woods colonies are smaller based on how many animals come to bait (dozens rather than 100s) when compared to the nest(s) in my front yard; they also seem to find baits slower.  There are many reasons (food, temperature) this could be true, though.   And it’s not like I can link a specific alate at the blacklight to a specific source colony.  Wouldn't that be nice.  Anyone ever try UV reflective powder for that?  You know, sprinkle animals at the colony entrance and then watch for glowy ones at a nearby light trap?  Too ambitious?   

 

In any case, their egg pile is substantial!  If all of the other singletons establish, I’ll have some available to sell/trade later for folks in NC.   (Note at about 4 o' clock of immediate center in the picture there are already larvae, there are others mixed into that pile too)

 

polygynous dentata zoom

 

Re: their ID.  I won’t sacrifice a queen for keying, but I have observed and collected innumerable animals from around the yard and they are all so far workers of P. dentata (no P. morrisii workers alas).   Picture here – with telltale sharp spines on the propodeum.   I’ll be sure to key a worker from each nascent colony in the future. 

 

32

 

 

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#10 Offline ANTdrew - Posted July 5 2021 - 11:51 AM

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Phenomenal photos! Good luck with this year’s batch.
"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#11 Offline jplelito - Posted July 22 2021 - 3:35 PM

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Mid-July 2021 Update –

 

Doing well.   Out of the nine dealates I selected for saving earlier, everyone is still alive and in some stage of colony founding, from eggs/early instars all the way to nanitic workers depending on the date of collection (which spans 6-28-21 to 7-11-21).   

Izsha has a good brood pile growing, with pupae present already.  I continue to feed her fruit flies a few times a week, gently placed near her in the evening.  There is usually no trace by morning – where does she hide those wings?  Here she is with her brood, caught laying an egg:

 

Izsha with Egg Lay

 

The four-queen colony (“The Myrmics”) which I reduced a few weeks ago to a three-queen colony because one of the females was always on the edge getting nudged by the others, has ~40 nanitics this morning (July 22).   They are doing very well so far and no further signs of aggression have been seen:

 

 

IMG 1129

 

 

Interestingly Izsha and The Myrmics were all from the same flight and kept in the same place – clearly there was a boost to development by using multiple queens.

  

The female removed from the four-queen colony was fed a small caterpillar (which was completely devoured) and she has since begun her own independent colony founding but she is way behind with only eggs and early instar larvae.   

 

The other four continue to do well and in fact I saw one more has a few really pale nanitics this evening. 

 

I did find a nest of these animals two nights ago in my garden as I pulled weeds; there were around 30 really fresh callow males in there yet!  So they may fly one more time, though our weather forecast doesn’t look good for a while as these always follow a good rain. 

 


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#12 Offline NicholasP - Posted July 22 2021 - 3:38 PM

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Mid-July 2021 Update –

 

Doing well.   Out of the nine dealates I selected for saving earlier, everyone is still alive and in some stage of colony founding, from eggs/early instars all the way to nanitic workers depending on the date of collection (which spans 6-28-21 to 7-11-21).   

Izsha has a good brood pile growing, with pupae present already.  I continue to feed her fruit flies a few times a week, gently placed near her in the evening.  There is usually no trace by morning – where does she hide those wings?  Here she is with her brood, caught laying an egg:

 

 

 

The four-queen colony (“The Myrmics”) which I reduced a few weeks ago to a three-queen colony because one of the females was always on the edge getting nudged by the others, has ~40 nanitics this morning (July 22).   They are doing very well so far and no further signs of aggression have been seen:

 

 

 

 

 

Interestingly Izsha and The Myrmics were all from the same flight and kept in the same place – clearly there was a boost to development by using multiple queens.

  

The female removed from the four-queen colony was fed a small caterpillar (which was completely devoured) and she has since begun her own independent colony founding but she is way behind with only eggs and early instar larvae.   

 

The other four continue to do well and in fact I saw one more has a few really pale nanitics this evening. 

 

I did find a nest of these animals two nights ago in my garden as I pulled weeds; there were around 30 really fresh callow males in there yet!  So they may fly one more time, though our weather forecast doesn’t look good for a while as these always follow a good rain. 

woah. that's pheidole hyatti queen in the very last pic I believe.


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#13 Offline jplelito - Posted July 22 2021 - 3:44 PM

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That would be something - I'm many hundreds of miles outside the range of that species at least as the literature knows it.  The closest they've been recorded is central LA; I'm in central NC.  I imagine many of the medium to large Pheidole queens probably look pretty similar except under a good microscope.  I'll key a major in a month or so when I have one.  


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#14 Offline NicholasP - Posted July 22 2021 - 5:37 PM

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That would be something - I'm many hundreds of miles outside the range of that species at least as the literature knows it.  The closest they've been recorded is central LA; I'm in central NC.  I imagine many of the medium to large Pheidole queens probably look pretty similar except under a good microscope.  I'll key a major in a month or so when I have one.  

I'm not sure if it's hyatti. But it definitley looks like it's from fallax group.


Edited by NicholasP, July 22 2021 - 5:38 PM.


#15 Offline jplelito - Posted August 7 2021 - 3:53 PM

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Early August Update 2021

The Myrmics were moved into their new home, a THA XL Mini Hearth, on the 28th of July – they’re doing great.  A big egg pile, larvae pasted around – typical Pheidole style decorating – and a good worker force (45+).  No aggression seen between the workers or the queens – a good sign.  Compared to Izsha’s colony this one is growing many times faster as one would sort of expect – some polygynous ants get less out of each queen but I see no evidence of that in this case.  The queens in fact spend a lot of time grooming each other as much as tending the egg piles.  This colony is very well organized – workers always patrol the outworld and within a minute of food being added they recruit many of their sisters and take bugs apart in no time at all.  Hard to imagine how fast they’ll grow – the brood pile is enormous already. 

 

Myrmics with nanitics
Myrmics setup
 

Izsha is also doing well, her nanitics (2) hatched and are now busy handling the chores.  The pupal success rate for whatever reason has been really low and she ended up with a lot less workers than I thought, but they seem OK otherwise and are tackling a mealworm and tending the eggs/larvae. 

 

Izsha with nanites

 

This AM after the local rainstorm overnight I found a single alate female dentata at my blacklight (and a ton of males), which I thankfully forgot to shut off despite the rain forecast.  Likely she won’t found, and I’ll set her loose, but it does mean they are still flying! 

Lastly, it does look like the other singletons are all founding successfully.  Even the latest collected queen, from mid-July, has pupae now; the older ones from late June or early July all have nanitic worker forces.  I’ll post about them in the marketplace shortly! 

 

 


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#16 Offline Virginian_ants - Posted July 22 2023 - 1:14 PM

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I'm trying to do a multi speices colony and are these queens still together and polygynous.




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