88 replies to this topic

[PaigeX]

Hey all!

 

I'm making this Journal for all my ants and to update in one place. I hope you enjoy!

Ok first thing is what's New.
I had 3 Polyrhachis Ammon queens laying eggs. One day I checked up on them and found one had died. I believe she got the honey on her and even tho she was not in the honey she still past away from it being on her body. I was upset with her passing and saw she had a good little pile of eggs. I was thinking they were gonna die because of no queen to look after them and then I thought: Why not add them to another queen with a pile of eggs? So I did and the new Queen took the eggs on! The other Polyrhachis Ammon Queen already has larvae so I didn't wanna add it to hers. A few days later that queen got her first pupal! 

 

Now I'll Show the setup for my ants.

Here is the Polyrhachis Ammon colony I have in my hand made Ytong Nest with the semi-claustral Queens.

 

Here is the table next to it with the rest of my colony's and Queens in test tubes. 

 

Inside the Red boxes. I made it to house the test tubes without falling over as I did not have any foam.

 

More pictures of the Ytong Nest I made.

Right now I'm still cutting up the red acrylic so I have black cardboard to cover the nest.

 

My signature has the names of all the ants I have. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed!

[PaigeX]

Alrighty! I already told the story of how I had to collect this colony in https://www.formicul...included/page-3

But here are some pictures of the progress after collection.

 

I hand made a large aspirator and here it is in the container, waiting for the ants to move out as it had a lot of dust in it.

 

Same day after they moved out.

 

Two days later. Ready for food.

[antsriondel]

nice colonies!!!!

[PaigeX]

nice colonies!!!!

Thank you! I plan to make nests for them when I can.

[PaigeX]

Some pictures of my Semi-Claustral Queens.

 

Polyrhachis Ammon queen 1, Has eggs as well as eggs from the other queen that pass away. Almost looks like some have just hatched.

 

 

Polyrhachis Ammon queen 2, Has eggs, Brood and two cocoons! 

 

 

Polyrhachis Aurea queen, Has eggs and Brood.

[antsriondel]

awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

[PaigeX]

Alrighty! 

The other day I was finally able to collect a colony of little orange ants. I have yet been able to ID them regardless of how much I search online. The Queens look like the workers so I can't tell who is who.
They are in a 13mm Test tube and the ants are 1.5mm long. This is a medium size colony I normally see. They get about half a size larger before they start making alates. 

 

 

 

Queen ants I found and collected that day.

 

Happy holidays to all and thank you for reading!

Edited by PaigeX, December 22 2021 - 6:23 AM.

[antsriondel]

nice!!!!!! also just wondering what are little orange ants?? ??

[Antkeeper01]

Alrighty! An update as well as a giveaway! (If you live in AUS and in QLD,NSW,VIC)

The other day I was finally able to collect a colony of little orange ants. I have yet been able to ID them regardless of how much I search online. The Queens look like the workers so I can't tell who is who.
They are in a 13mm Test tube and the ants are 1.5mm long. This is a medium size colony I normally see. They get about half a size larger before they start making alates. 

 

IMG_20211216_085041_1.jpg

IMG_20211216_085122.jpg

IMG_20211216_085052.jpg

 

 

As for the giveaway, I was blessed enough to find 12 Queen founding chambers around a tree in my back yard. 9 of which are Polyrhachis Ammon. 
I want to bless someone with some queens for Christmas so the first person (in the right states from AUS) to message me will be given the following:

Polyrhachis Ammon Queen with eggs/brood.
Camponotus Elegans Queen with larvae and cocoons.

And a Iridomyrmex Bicknelli Queen I found over a month ago. She has her first workers.

 

Please make sure if your under age that you get your parents or guardian permission to share your address. 

 

Yesterdays collection of them all.

IMG_20211216_153226.jpg

 

Happy holidays to all and thank you for reading!

the tiny orange ants look like solenopsis to me but i'm not very familiar with austrailian ants

Edited by Antkeeper01, December 17 2021 - 1:54 PM.

[Leptomyrmx]

Tiny orange ants could also be Tetramorium, there's one super tiny species around my grandparents'. Definitely in the subfamily Myrmicinae though.

 

 

 

Alrighty! An update as well as a giveaway! (If you live in AUS and in QLD,NSW,VIC)

The other day I was finally able to collect a colony of little orange ants. I have yet been able to ID them regardless of how much I search online. The Queens look like the workers so I can't tell who is who.
They are in a 13mm Test tube and the ants are 1.5mm long. This is a medium size colony I normally see. They get about half a size larger before they start making alates. 

 

IMG_20211216_085041_1.jpg

IMG_20211216_085122.jpg

IMG_20211216_085052.jpg

 

 

As for the giveaway, I was blessed enough to find 12 Queen founding chambers around a tree in my back yard. 9 of which are Polyrhachis Ammon. 
I want to bless someone with some queens for Christmas so the first person (in the right states from AUS) to message me will be given the following:

Polyrhachis Ammon Queen with eggs/brood.
Camponotus Elegans Queen with larvae and cocoons.

And a Iridomyrmex Bicknelli Queen I found over a month ago. She has her first workers.

 

Please make sure if your under age that you get your parents or guardian permission to share your address. 

 

Yesterdays collection of them all.

IMG_20211216_153226.jpg

 

Happy holidays to all and thank you for reading!

the tiny orange ants look like solenopsis to me but i'm not very familiar with austrailian ants

 

Also, Queensland has one native Solenopsis species, Solenopsis pachycera, but there's no records on iNaturalist, and if you search the name on there it isn't classified a species.

[PaigeX]

Tiny orange ants could also be Tetramorium, there's one super tiny species around my grandparents'. Definitely in the subfamily Myrmicinae though.

 

 

 

Alrighty! An update as well as a giveaway! (If you live in AUS and in QLD,NSW,VIC)

The other day I was finally able to collect a colony of little orange ants. I have yet been able to ID them regardless of how much I search online. The Queens look like the workers so I can't tell who is who.
They are in a 13mm Test tube and the ants are 1.5mm long. This is a medium size colony I normally see. They get about half a size larger before they start making alates. 

 

IMG_20211216_085041_1.jpg

IMG_20211216_085122.jpg

IMG_20211216_085052.jpg

 

 

As for the giveaway, I was blessed enough to find 12 Queen founding chambers around a tree in my back yard. 9 of which are Polyrhachis Ammon. 
I want to bless someone with some queens for Christmas so the first person (in the right states from AUS) to message me will be given the following:

Polyrhachis Ammon Queen with eggs/brood.
Camponotus Elegans Queen with larvae and cocoons.

And a Iridomyrmex Bicknelli Queen I found over a month ago. She has her first workers.

 

Please make sure if your under age that you get your parents or guardian permission to share your address. 

 

Yesterdays collection of them all.

IMG_20211216_153226.jpg

 

Happy holidays to all and thank you for reading!

the tiny orange ants look like solenopsis to me but i'm not very familiar with austrailian ants

 

Also, Queensland has one native Solenopsis species, Solenopsis pachycera, but there's no records on iNaturalist, and if you search the name on there it isn't classified a species.

Thank you for the heads up there. I'll look for Tetramorium on antwiki and antweb. I've found iNaturalist does not have many stuff on it as good as the other two i just listed.

[PaigeX]

Its not Tetramorium, or at least one I can find that does not have spines on it. I got my new digital microscope and two of the different workers in the colony. 
And yes, those are the best pictures I can get. Its not a good digital microscope but its the best thing I have. 

 

 

 

Maybe its an invasive kind?

Edited by PaigeX, December 19 2021 - 1:51 AM.

[SYUTEO]

Adlerzia, Chelaner and Solenopsis are my best guesses I'm probably wrong though.

[PaigeX]

Adlerzia, Chelaner and Solenopsis are my best guesses I'm probably wrong though.

Thanks for the names! I've checked them out and here is what I have found.

Only native Solenopsis to QLD is Solenopsis pachycera but I can not find a single picture of it on the internet. 

Only native Aderzia to QLD is Adlerzia froggatti but its looks do not match.

There are 19 native Chelaner to QLD and I'm still going through them all.

 

EDIT:
I went through all the Chelaner and the only two that match is: Chelaner leae and Chelaner euryodon.

Edited by PaigeX, December 20 2021 - 5:11 AM.

[Leptomyrmx]

 

Adlerzia, Chelaner and Solenopsis are my best guesses I'm probably wrong though.

Thanks for the names! I've checked them out and here is what I have found.

Only native Solenopsis to QLD is Solenopsis pachycera but I can not find a single picture of it on the internet. 

Only native Aderzia to QLD is Adlerzia froggatti but its looks do not match.

There are 19 native Chelaner to QLD and I'm still going through them all.

 

EDIT:
I went through all the Chelaner and the only two that match is: Chelaner leae and Chelaner euryodon.

 

However I believe in Chelaner leae the queen is a fair bit larger than the workers... know any Myrmecologists you can send some specimens to? lol
I mean I do kinda know an entomologist who specialises in ants-

[PaigeX]

 

 

Adlerzia, Chelaner and Solenopsis are my best guesses I'm probably wrong though.

Thanks for the names! I've checked them out and here is what I have found.

Only native Solenopsis to QLD is Solenopsis pachycera but I can not find a single picture of it on the internet. 

Only native Aderzia to QLD is Adlerzia froggatti but its looks do not match.

There are 19 native Chelaner to QLD and I'm still going through them all.

 

EDIT:
I went through all the Chelaner and the only two that match is: Chelaner leae and Chelaner euryodon.

 

However I believe in Chelaner leae the queen is a fair bit larger than the workers... know any Myrmecologists you can send some specimens to? lol
I mean I do kinda know an entomologist who specialises in ants-

 

It looks like Chelaner Leae but the colour is way out And the other one is too dark. I'm starting to think its an invasive species. And I would love to know a Myrmecology to send many of my collected specimens to. Its like something I've googled but can't found out about yet or how to go about it.

Edited by PaigeX, December 21 2021 - 5:48 AM.

[PaigeX]

Re-did my queen set up boxes and organised them. Took me over 1.5 hours to do.

 

 

Left box is full of just Camponotus Aeneopilosus queens. I brood boosted some to see how they would react. Some ate pupa others did nothing. Mixed reactions. But many accepted the brood.

 

Middle one is a mix. 5 Camponotus Humilior, 1 Camponotus Elegans, 1 Brachyponera lutea, 2 unidentified Camponotus, 1 unidentified queen (Crematogaster sp.) Two mini small orange Queens, 3mm in size.

 

Right one is Spiny ants, Mainly Golden spiny ants. 10-11 Polyrhachis Ammon, 1 Polyrhachis phryne (was on sale for $30 half price!), and I think one of each, Polyrhachis vermiculosa and Polyrhachis Aurea.

 

 

The cotton fabric cotton covers are amazing. I had a spare all cotton T-shirt with little colouring and cut it up into rectangles. Had to re-do all honey for the semi-claustral queens and the plugs for all.

Right now I have no idea what to do with them so I'm gonna wait until they settle down before I think about selling some.

 

I think I'm doing well for a new ant keeper in just Oct this year. lol

Edited by PaigeX, December 21 2021 - 6:50 AM.

[SYUTEO]

Maybe it's Solenopsis papuana, it's native to New Guinea and many of the Pacific islands but invasive in Queensland. I found it on Antweb. And I'm at least 80% sure it's S. papuana because some specimens on Antweb are bright yellow/orange and most of the details seem to match.

[ANTS_KL]

Maybe it's Solenopsis papuana, it's native to New Guinea and many of the Pacific islands but invasive in Queensland. I found it on Antweb. And I'm at least 80% sure it's S. papuana because some specimens on Antweb are bright yellow/orange and most of the details seem to match.

Likely those. From what I can see, they look solenopsidine. Paige, mind if you try to get a picture of a queen?

[PaigeX]

 

Maybe it's Solenopsis papuana, it's native to New Guinea and many of the Pacific islands but invasive in Queensland. I found it on Antweb. And I'm at least 80% sure it's S. papuana because some specimens on Antweb are bright yellow/orange and most of the details seem to match.

Likely those. From what I can see, they look solenopsidine. Paige, mind if you try to get a picture of a queen?

 

that's just it. There are no larger ants in this colony and any others that I find out side. Either they all have no queens or the queens look too similar to the workers. I have Queens of similar size that are 3mm long. I'll get a picture of one of the dead ones I collected. Might be the same species. But only one other colony I've found out of the 10+ had larger workers. I do think it was a different species. 

 

Maybe it's Solenopsis papuana, it's native to New Guinea and many of the Pacific islands but invasive in Queensland. I found it on Antweb. And I'm at least 80% sure it's S. papuana because some specimens on Antweb are bright yellow/orange and most of the details seem to match.

When I googled the name. This picture came up.
Its looks identical to what I have but its only Native to USA and no accounts are of it here in QLD.
https://www.discover...arch=Solenopsis

Solenopsis molesta, worker

 

So it might be Solenopsis papuana as you say. 

 

EDIT: On a site i found the same one for sale but its only classed as Solenopsis sp. 
https://www.antkeepi...s-sp-queen-only

Edited by PaigeX, December 21 2021 - 6:16 PM.