43 replies to this topic

[SYUTEO]

Reviving this thread. Thaumatomyrmex? I don't see why anyone would want to farm Polyxenida just to keep Thaumatomyrmex. The fact that they have ergatoid queens makes it harder to determine if you got a queen from a colony or not. Or Aneuretus, simply because we know little to none about their lifestyle and what their queens look like, though this would change if they were studied a lot more.

It's probably not worth it because Thaumatomyrmex only has 3-4 individuals per colony. (queens/gamergates included)

[NicholasP]

I just watched a fun video about "the most impossible to keep reptiles" and it was really interesting addressing how some species just need too much space, or special food and even zoos struggle to keep them. 
 
So what would that list be like for ants? Let's consider "successfully keeping" a generally humane life for the colony where they can grow large enough to make female alates. 
 
I'll give a go at it, but I know some of you will have some neat contributions:
 
  
1. Army Ants. A foraging species that lives in a bivocac, terrible stings and bites, insane numbers, and they need so much food. There was a Chinese youTuber who had a queen of the Asian army ant, she was huge, but apparently died without founding ... which makes the whole thing more sad than exciting. I guess you could "keep" these by owning a jungle. But I don't think that counts. 
 
2. Pseudomyrmex ferruginea lives in the acacia tree and growing a whole tree for you ants sounds like a lot of work. I don't know if they can live without the tree, but that seems cruel to me. 

 

What would you put on this list?

I know this is super late, but Army Ant queens CANNOT survive without a couple thousand workers from the mother colony since they can't care for themselves since they're so big. Same goes with Leptogenys elongata. Like Army ants they can't start a colony by themselves and will take a certain amount of workers from the mother colony just like Army Ants. And like Army Ants this method goes by the name of budding.

[ANTS_KL]

 

Reviving this thread. Thaumatomyrmex? I don't see why anyone would want to farm Polyxenida just to keep Thaumatomyrmex. The fact that they have ergatoid queens makes it harder to determine if you got a queen from a colony or not. Or Aneuretus, simply because we know little to none about their lifestyle and what their queens look like, though this would change if they were studied a lot more.

It's probably not worth it because Thaumatomyrmex only has 3-4 individuals per colony. (queens/gamergates included)

 

I did not know ants could have smaller colonies than Myrmoteras ;-;

[SYUTEO]

 

 

Reviving this thread. Thaumatomyrmex? I don't see why anyone would want to farm Polyxenida just to keep Thaumatomyrmex. The fact that they have ergatoid queens makes it harder to determine if you got a queen from a colony or not. Or Aneuretus, simply because we know little to none about their lifestyle and what their queens look like, though this would change if they were studied a lot more.

It's probably not worth it because Thaumatomyrmex only has 3-4 individuals per colony. (queens/gamergates included)

 

I did not know ants could have smaller colonies than Myrmoteras ;-;

 

Thaumatomyrmex has the smallest colonies of every ant species we know so far.