Jump to content

  • Chat
  •  
  •  

Welcome to Formiculture.com!

This is a website for anyone interested in Myrmecology and all aspects of finding, keeping, and studying ants. The site and forum are free to use. Register now to gain access to all of our features. Once registered and logged in, you will be able to create topics, post replies to existing threads, give reputation points to your fellow members, get your own private messenger, post status updates, manage your profile and so much more. If you already have an account, login here - otherwise create an account for free today!

Photo

Some cute critters


  • Please log in to reply
2 replies to this topic

#1 Offline ItalianTermiteMan2.0 - Posted March 28 2022 - 5:55 PM

ItalianTermiteMan2.0

    Advanced Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 59 posts
  • LocationRavenna, Italy.

Reminder: baby termites are cute (even in such a bad pic)!

 

 

Their colony (headed by no primary royals but a robust amount of neotenic ones) is maintained in a rather large plastic container filled for 3/4ths with sandy soil; there i buried "bundles" of several 3mm wide spruce wood planks piled one above the other (in my case, 6 3mm planks per bundle), there are two such bundles in the container buried (lightly, leaving just around 2cm of soil above them for ease of future access) in the opposide sides. Though many termites nest in the chamber excavated at the bottom of the container, many others quickly colonized the wood planks, nesting and foraging in them: this setup, beside being highly apreciated by the animals themselves, make their collection very easy as it's enough to carefully dig out a few planks, shake them above a container to make the termites clinging on fall inside, then put them back in their place and re-bury as before. Keep everything always humid but never too damp at a temperature of 24-25C for best result (they can also happily live at your average room temperature year round, they'll just breed and grow slower).

 

By the way, the species here is Reticulitermes lucifugus, one of the two native subterranean species in Italy. Relatively recently in the north of the country two hotspots of the notorious Reticulitermes flavipes from America (already rather well-enstablished in countries like Spain and France) were identified by authorities. As far as i know, they're not fully eradicated yet, and in all likehood more and more R. flavipes will arrive here from France and Spain. 

 

 

277461475_3110093609319178_8673522378663307045_n.jpg


  • Nare, ANTdrew, Antkeeper01 and 1 other like this

#2 Offline Nare - Posted April 2 2022 - 9:00 AM

Nare

    Advanced Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 380 posts

Very cool - out of curiosity, how long was it before you noticed brood appear in the colony after collection? A few months?



#3 Offline ItalianTermiteMan2.0 - Posted April 5 2022 - 8:12 AM

ItalianTermiteMan2.0

    Advanced Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 59 posts
  • LocationRavenna, Italy.

Yes, a few months is right. Though i don't precisely record much in my keeping (yes, i know i should) i've observed lenghts (from isolation to first eggs) from approximately a pair of months onward. Apparently, colonies kept in natual-like setups with soil do so faster, but again i should make some more precise experiments to say things for sure.


  • Antkeeper01 and United-Ants like this




0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users