133 replies to this topic

[Ants4fun]

How is this colony?

[dspdrew]

Update 4-8-2016
 
The colony is steadily growing and doing really well in the 10 gallon "dirt box". It's hard to see them all in this setup, but based on what I could see, I estimate about 500 workers now. They also have a huge amount of brood too.
 
I did a little experiment to see what seeds these collect the most, so all their tunnels are packed full of seeds and other food.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
There were two alates I kept seeing come out of the nest and run around. The workers eventually chewed the wings off of them, and now they clean the nest and collect food just like the rest of the colony.
 
Here's one of the alates before the wings were removed.
 

 

 

 
 
Here's the little experiment I did to see what seeds and food this colony prefers. I setup some container lids full of amaranth, bluegrass seed, rainbow quinoa, niger seeds, sunflower seed, poppy seeds, ground chia seed (I didn't have anymore whole chia seed), and cichlid pellets.
 

 
 
The ants had an entrance to their nest on both sides of the tank, and they were running all over the place, so placement probably didn't have anything to do with what they collected first.
 

 

 
 
They first crowded the niger seeds and cichlid pellets way more than anything else.
 

 
 
It was funny watching them haul the pellets into their nest, as they could hardly pick them up.
 

 
 
After the first few hours, you can see the niger seeds were all gone, and the cichlid pellets weren't far behind.
 

 
 
After a few more hours, the sunflower seeds were all gone too. They also started to crowd the bluegrass seeds at this point, and almost had them all collected too. The cichlid pellets would have probably been gone before both of these, but it just took them a lot longer to carry them away.
 

 
 
A few more hours and the rest of the bluegrass seeds were gone, and almost all the cichlid pellets.
 

 
 
A few more hours and the rest of the cichlid pellets were gone, and almost all the quinoa.
 

 
 
Once the quinoa was gone, things slowed down a lot. Obviously the size of the remaining three was a big factor in how long it took the ants to collect them, but they really weren't working on them much until everything else was gone. I stopped taking pictures after this because things were barely changing. It seems the poppy seed and ground chia was their least favorite, kind of surprising because most Pogonomyrmex really like poppy seeds. I wasn't surprised at all that the niger seeds went first, as every Pogonomyrmex colony I have goes crazy over them. I know they're eating them too, because I see lots of niger seed husks outside the nests.
 

[yen_saw]

Interesting! I will try it on P barbatus. With the fresh supply of food your colony will see lot more larvae soon! 

[dspdrew]

[LC3]

So many pupae!

[nurbs]

Great job on that seed test! Very interesting.

[dspdrew]

Update 6-10-2016
 
The colony is getting so big I'm not sure what to do with them. They have dug half the dirt out of this nest by now, and won't stop digging. They need to be put into something permanent that they can't dig in. The colony probably has close to a thousand workers now.
 

 

 
 
I just scooped this much loose dirt off the top.
 

 
 
They really like these parakeet honey seed treats. They are very hard, so it takes the ants quite a while to pry seeds off of them. This makes them last a long time and makes a perfect long term food source.
 

[Okeedoke22]

Wow.

 

That is a lot of busy ants. 

[ronsap123]

So will you be making a formicarium? please do update. what a fascinating journal

[dspdrew]

Yes I will, I'm just not sure exactly when. The colony is still huge and getting bigger all the time.

[Foogoo]

Are your workers full-size? It's hard to tell from the picture. I was surprised how big they get first time I saw them in the wild.

[dspdrew]

Oh yeah, they're huge.

[sgheaton]

Time to upgrade the 10 gallon tank into a 50 gallon 

[SamKeepsAnts]

can't wait for an update

[Kevin]

How's this colony going? Is that 10 gallon holding up?

[Leo]

do they sting?

[Californian Anter]

do they sting?

Yes

[Connectimyrmex]

I'm so jelly! Pogonomyrmex is amazing!

[FSTP]

Really neat to see how they prefer different seed stock. Have you tried offering them foods they might find in the wild like mesquite tree seed pods or desert willow or something similar?

[dspdrew]

I give them some wild seeds from the desret sometimes.