I haven't been able to find much care information on Neoponera villosa online, so this journal is aimed to educate the care requirements needed for Neoponera villosa through my own trial and error
This last weekend I was able to obtain a dual queen Neoponera villosa colony, and a handful of founding queens.
The colony is housed in a THA Nucleus and prefers sunburst ant nectar over water. A ratio of 40% nectar, 60% water was also added however the ants lost interest within a few minutes and switched back to sunburst. when feeding these ants their liquids must be placed inside a bottle cap or small dish of some sort. They hold the drops between their mandibles and drink that way.
It is also important to note this colony refuses to use soil as a media to allow larvae to pupate.
All soil added was removed from the nest while the play sand added was accepted. The larvae are only placed on the water tower to pupate and buried in sand.
Feeding response has been good, preferred food is crickets with dubias right there behind. They go for fruit flies but tend to leave them behind after killing them, not sure why yet. Bee pollen granules were also offered, ants took little interest in those however I counted 5 in the nest this morning.
Queens were brood boosted, however only one accepted the larvae which has now spun into a pupae.
The queens forage for roughly 2 hours a day, primarily 1 hour after I turn off ant room lights (Test tube us covered in foil).
