20 replies to this topic

[FloridaAnts]

Greetings!

I know this is going to be debated a bit, but I have a few questions.

Is releasing ants bad?

Is catching wild (native) colonies bad? Just want to know if I should return the Crematogaster colony I found in a stick(Yes there is a queen). And, please, no digging up natives unless needed for parasitic ants etc(brood only). It often leads to death of the colony or queen.

Just want to here y’all’s thoughts.

Edit inspired by Cheeto:

What do you think of the illegal ant trade?

Edited by FloridaAnts, July 19 2022 - 7:34 PM.

[FinWins]

Personally I would say that catching native colonies is not bad especially if the species does not play a vital role in the ecosystem or if the species is common (and there for easier to find). I myself don’t have tons of experience in the matter in the field, however I have encountered this problem in my research and looked at both sides and that is where I base my opinion.

[DDD101DDD]

In my opinion, it's a topic highly dependent on the scale of the operation. Releasing one or 2 small colonies that were already native? Probably not gonna be harmful. However if it's invasives or large colonies there's going to be some kind of risk involved. You may not see the effect immediately, but with highly invasive species just a few colonies getting a stable footing is something that could be terrible. As for natives, I honestly don't know, but if you don't have a good understanding of your local ecosystem, I'd say try to not potentially change it. 

 

Again, with the second question it's highly dependent on scale. That little 5 worker colony of Lasius you find under a rock likely doesn't matter, but if you take away large, established colonies it might be somewhat significant, especially if it's a rare species.

[FloridaAnts]

In my opinion, it's a topic highly dependent on the scale of the operation. Releasing one or 2 small colonies that were already native? Probably not gonna be harmful. However if it's invasives or large colonies there's going to be some kind of risk involved. You may not see the effect immediately, but with highly invasive species just a few colonies getting a stable footing is something that could be terrible. As for natives, I honestly don't know, but if you don't have a good understanding of your local ecosystem, I'd say try to not potentially change it.

Again, with the second question it's highly dependent on scale. That little 5 worker colony of Lasius you find under a rock likely doesn't matter, but if you take away large, established colonies it might be somewhat significant, especially if it's a rare species.

Do you know how much a Camponotus Floridanus colony grew when I dug up a Odontomachus(invasive species, no worry) expanded its foraging area? Before I would see them fight, but now they use some flowers for nectar nearby. Hopefully it stays like this.

Also in my area, never have I seen Lasius. My area is like getting Brazilian natives, Cuban natives, and Mexican natives Ants and throwing them all of a piece of land in Florida. Only in the trees, will natives survive.

Edited by FloridaAnts, July 17 2022 - 9:00 PM.

[DDD101DDD]

 

In my opinion, it's a topic highly dependent on the scale of the operation. Releasing one or 2 small colonies that were already native? Probably not gonna be harmful. However if it's invasives or large colonies there's going to be some kind of risk involved. You may not see the effect immediately, but with highly invasive species just a few colonies getting a stable footing is something that could be terrible. As for natives, I honestly don't know, but if you don't have a good understanding of your local ecosystem, I'd say try to not potentially change it.

Again, with the second question it's highly dependent on scale. That little 5 worker colony of Lasius you find under a rock likely doesn't matter, but if you take away large, established colonies it might be somewhat significant, especially if it's a rare species.

Do you know how much a Camponotus Floridanus colony grew when I dug up a Odontomachus(invasive species, no worry) expanded its foraging area? Before I would see them fight, but now they use some flowers for nectar nearby. Hopefully it stays like this.

Also in my area, never have I seen Lasius. My area is like getting Brazilian natives, Cuban natives, and Mexican natives Ants and throwing them all of a piece of land in Florida. Only in the trees, will natives survive.

 

Digging up invasives is totally fine. My answer was not made with your specific situation in mind.

[AntsDakota]

In my opinion the most right thing to do with invasives is to either dig them up or exterminate them, the former being the more humane option.

[ANTdrew]

I don’t see any problem with releasing native ant colonies. Non-native species should be humanely euthanized if one can no longer keep them.

Digging up established colonies from the wild is something I’ve preached against for years on this forum. If you consider how few queens successfully found a colony, each established colony should be celebrated and protected. This is true even for small colonies, which are needed to grow up and replace old ones (consider fishing size limits). When you remove wild colonies, you are removing the genetic all-stars from the breeding pool. A final reason not to do this is that uprooted colonies almost always languish and fail in captivity. Take a stroll through the journals on here if you don’t believe me.
The exception to the above is if you are a legitimate researcher doing real research.

[aznphenom]

I don't release anything. You potentially risk exposing something from your house to the environment. 

Edited by aznphenom, July 18 2022 - 4:52 AM.

[FloridaAnts]

I don’t see any problem with releasing native ant colonies. Non-native species should be humanely euthanized if one can no longer keep them.
Digging up established colonies from the wild is something I’ve preached against for years on this forum. If you consider how few queens successfully found a colony, each established colony should be celebrated and protected. This is true even for small colonies, which are needed to grow up and replace old ones (consider fishing size limits). When you remove wild colonies, you are removing the genetic all-stars from the breeding pool. A final reason not to do this is that uprooted colonies almost always languish and fail in captivity. Take a stroll through the journals on here if you don’t believe me.
The exception to the above is if you are a legitimate researcher doing real research.

I do kill invicta, even though it isn’t needed(for bureni) when they stroll around C. Castaneus nest and D. Bureni nest. I have considered that releasing a large native colony would basically replace all the small growing ones, but I do not plan on releasing any colonies(yet).

[NicholasP]

I personally say digging up colonies is not bad as long as it's not a lot and if the colony is not big. Big as in not mature size where they'd start making alates. Like if it's a Camponotus colony with 50 individuals or less that's fine. I'd get iffy if it's 100 individuals for Camponotus (not including queens). I personally think releasing a native colony is fine but releasing invasive species is an awful choice. I actually am really hoping this time around next year I'll be able to get my parasitic Formica and my Aphaenogaster picea colonies to the point that they'd produce alates so I can let the alates fly outside and mate and join the ecosystem as it would be a win win for me. I get to collect some of the mated queens and the rest of the queens get to join the ecosystem.

[FloridaAnts]

I personally say digging up colonies is not bad as long as it's not a lot and if the colony is not big. Big as in not mature size where they'd start making alates. Like if it's a Camponotus colony with 50 individuals or less that's fine. I'd get iffy if it's 100 individuals for Camponotus (not including queens). I personally think releasing a native colony is fine but releasing invasive species is an awful choice. I actually am really hoping this time around next year I'll be able to get my parasitic Formica and my Aphaenogaster picea colonies to the point that they'd produce alates so I can let the alates fly outside and mate and join the ecosystem as it would be a win win for me. I get to collect some of the mated queens and the rest of the queens get to join the ecosystem.

I also hope my few NATIVE colonies produce alates so I may release them. All invasive alates either die from workers or I pull them to feed to the Odontomachus. Sorry, but instantly going into shock is better than being pulled apart limb by limb.

[AntsDakota]

I don’t see any problem with releasing native ant colonies. Non-native species should be humanely euthanized if one can no longer keep them.

Digging up established colonies from the wild is something I’ve preached against for years on this forum. If you consider how few queens successfully found a colony, each established colony should be celebrated and protected. This is true even for small colonies, which are needed to grow up and replace old ones (consider fishing size limits). When you remove wild colonies, you are removing the genetic all-stars from the breeding pool. A final reason not to do this is that uprooted colonies almost always languish and fail in captivity. Take a stroll through the journals on here if you don’t believe me.
The exception to the above is if you are a legitimate researcher doing real research.

The genetics argument could also be used against releasing any ants as well. So, I'm going to disregard all of you guys' feelings for your colonies for a second and be blunt: chances are, your colonies suck - genetically, that is. The only reason why they're still alive is because they're pampered and sheltered in their captive lifestyle, and could never have established themselves in the wild. Of course a couple percentiles of captive colonies have good genetics, but like I said, most do not. I've also observed that captivity tends to make colonies soft; they don't lose workers except to old age very often, their food is pre-killed and consistent, they don't have to deal with weather or conditions, and their enclosures are sterile in comparison to the wild. Nurture definitely plays at least a limited role in colony behavior and wellbeing. So the combination of the fact that your colony most likely has crappy genetics and they've been pampered to the point of near dependency on their keeper makes it pretty clear that releasing a larger colony would highly increase the risk of that colony's death, or if not put them through a system shock. So based on these reasons I believe it is inhumane to release captive colonies themselves and put them in severe danger, and is a bigger reason than any potential environmental risk factors.

[CheetoLord02]

All I'm going to put here is a quote from the USDA.
 

Restrictions.  No person shall import, move interstate, transit, or release into the environment plant pests, biological control organisms, or associated articles, unless the importation, interstate movement, transit, or release into the environment of the plant pests, biological control organisms, or associated articles is: 

 

(1) Authorized under an import, interstate movement, or continued curation permit issued in accordance with § 330.201; or 

 

(2) Authorized in accordance with other APHIS regulations in this chapter; or 

 

(3) Explicitly granted an exception from permitting requirements in this subpart; or 

 

(4) Authorized under a general permit issued by the Administrator.

Source: https://www.ecfr.gov...section-330.200

The last thing I want to do is to bring the "illegal trade" argument into this thread, but for the sake of consistency, know that releasing ants is just as illegal as any of that other stuff. I feel like this fact is often overlooked in the hobby, despite it being mentioned quite literally in the same sentence as the restrictions people will go to war over. Just food for thought, I guess.
 

[FloridaAnts]

All I'm going to put here is a quote from the USDA.
 
Restrictions.  No person shall import, move interstate, transit, or release into the environment plant pests, biological control organisms, or associated articles, unless the importation, interstate movement, transit, or release into the environment of the plant pests, biological control organisms, or associated articles is: 
 
(1) Authorized under an import, interstate movement, or continued curation permit issued in accordance with § 330.201; or 
 
(2) Authorized in accordance with other APHIS regulations in this chapter; or 
 
(3) Explicitly granted an exception from permitting requirements in this subpart; or 
 
(4) Authorized under a general permit issued by the Administrator.Source: https://www.ecfr.gov...section-330.200The last thing I want to do is to bring the "illegal trade" argument into this thread, but for the sake of consistency, know that releasing ants is just as illegal as any of that other stuff. I feel like this fact is often overlooked in the hobby, despite it being mentioned quite literally in the same sentence as the restrictions people will go to war over. Just food for thought, I guess.

Would if be bad even if they were wild caught? I didn’t realize that. (Added trade to main post so more people see sorry if it seems like I am stealing an idea or something)


I think the problem with illegal ants is eBay. Get rid of the ants for sale on eBay, seriously it wouldn’t be a huge problem anymore. I hate those sellers who sell an invicta queen, worker, brood, and “king”. It appears they actually are selling an alate, not a queen. Why would anybody buy off Etsy or EBay with the reviews they have? Also, get the message through to some(A lot of them do have it listed) companies in the UK and EU that shipping ants inside the US is illegal.

[FinWins]

All I'm going to put here is a quote from the USDA.
 
Restrictions.  No person shall import, move interstate, transit, or release into the environment plant pests, biological control organisms, or associated articles, unless the importation, interstate movement, transit, or release into the environment of the plant pests, biological control organisms, or associated articles is: 
 
(1) Authorized under an import, interstate movement, or continued curation permit issued in accordance with § 330.201; or 
 
(2) Authorized in accordance with other APHIS regulations in this chapter; or 
 
(3) Explicitly granted an exception from permitting requirements in this subpart; or 
 
(4) Authorized under a general permit issued by the Administrator.Source: https://www.ecfr.gov...section-330.200The last thing I want to do is to bring the "illegal trade" argument into this thread, but for the sake of consistency, know that releasing ants is just as illegal as any of that other stuff. I feel like this fact is often overlooked in the hobby, despite it being mentioned quite literally in the same sentence as the restrictions people will go to war over. Just food for thought, I guess.

Would if be bad even if they were wild caught? I didn’t realize that. (Added trade to main post so more people see sorry if it seems like I am stealing an idea or something)
I think the problem with illegal ants is eBay. Get rid of the ants for sale on eBay, seriously it wouldn’t be a huge problem anymore. I hate those sellers who sell an invicta queen, worker, brood, and “king”. It appears they actually are selling an alate, not a queen. Why would anybody buy off Etsy or EBay with the reviews they have? Also, get the message through to some(A lot of them do have it listed) companies in the UK and EU that shipping ants inside the US is illegal.

Yeah, not to mention the scammers

[Serafine]

Greetings!

I know this is going to be debated a bit, but I have a few questions.

Is releasing ants bad?

 

Let me give you this quote from an actual entomologist. He pinpointed the issues better than i ever could.

 

 

So the reason we don't re-release ants once they've been in captivity is several-fold.

First of all, let's deal with the big thing: if you buy ants from online, they're very unlikely to be local, even if they're the same species. I can buy a Lasius niger from online, which is about as abundant as you can get in the UK, but that doesn't mean I can introduce them locally. The reason for this is that local populations of a given animal have local genetics to that region. Despite being the same species, their traits can differ quite a bit between even local regions, and that, twinned with the fact that eusociality generally results in a low number of individuals within a given area (with colonies being individuals vs actual individual ants), you can seriously disrupt the local balance of genes in a given area, especially as you've released a set of ants post-founding eliminating natural selection for a large part of their life-cycle.

But let's say you caught your Lasius niger queen from your garden, why is it important that you don't re-release? The previous argument actually still holds (you've removed them into a more febrile environment for a part of their lifecycle), but more importantly you're changing the parasitic balance of your local ecosystem.

So what the heck does that mean? Basically, the conditions that you raise your ants in will be very different from the native environment of the ants. As a result, parasites (mites, fungi, bacteria) are way more likely to propagate. It's not a problem for your ants cause they have an abundance of food, clean water etc., but it allows populations of these diseases to propagate in a way they wouldn't have the ability to in the wild. When you re-release, you can seriously disrupt your local invertebrate ecosystem by introducing your biological-weapon ants on it.

Edited by Serafine, July 24 2022 - 11:08 AM.

[PurdueEntomology]

 

I don’t see any problem with releasing native ant colonies. Non-native species should be humanely euthanized if one can no longer keep them.

Digging up established colonies from the wild is something I’ve preached against for years on this forum. If you consider how few queens successfully found a colony, each established colony should be celebrated and protected. This is true even for small colonies, which are needed to grow up and replace old ones (consider fishing size limits). When you remove wild colonies, you are removing the genetic all-stars from the breeding pool. A final reason not to do this is that uprooted colonies almost always languish and fail in captivity. Take a stroll through the journals on here if you don’t believe me.
The exception to the above is if you are a legitimate researcher doing real research.

The genetics argument could also be used against releasing any ants as well. So, I'm going to disregard all of you guys' feelings for your colonies for a second and be blunt: chances are, your colonies suck - genetically, that is. The only reason why they're still alive is because they're pampered and sheltered in their captive lifestyle, and could never have established themselves in the wild. Of course a couple percentiles of captive colonies have good genetics, but like I said, most do not. I've also observed that captivity tends to make colonies soft; they don't lose workers except to old age very often, their food is pre-killed and consistent, they don't have to deal with weather or conditions, and their enclosures are sterile in comparison to the wild. Nurture definitely plays at least a limited role in colony behavior and wellbeing. So the combination of the fact that your colony most likely has crappy genetics and they've been pampered to the point of near dependency on their keeper makes it pretty clear that releasing a larger colony would highly increase the risk of that colony's death, or if not put them through a system shock. So based on these reasons I believe it is inhumane to release captive colonies themselves and put them in severe danger, and is a bigger reason than any potential environmental risk factors.

 

I believe to move beyond speculation is to actually in a controlled and monitored procedure release captive endemics and then get the data to see what actually happens to them.  As for invasives or non-endemics NEVER release but destroy. 

[UrbanOrganisms]

The genetics argument could also be used against releasing any ants as well. So, I'm going to disregard all of you guys' feelings for your colonies for a second and be blunt: chances are, your colonies suck - genetically, that is. The only reason why they're still alive is because they're pampered and sheltered in their captive lifestyle, and could never have established themselves in the wild. Of course a couple percentiles of captive colonies have good genetics, but like I said, most do not. I've also observed that captivity tends to make colonies soft; they don't lose workers except to old age very often, their food is pre-killed and consistent, they don't have to deal with weather or conditions, and their enclosures are sterile in comparison to the wild. Nurture definitely plays at least a limited role in colony behavior and wellbeing. So the combination of the fact that your colony most likely has crappy genetics and they've been pampered to the point of near dependency on their keeper makes it pretty clear that releasing a larger colony would highly increase the risk of that colony's death, or if not put them through a system shock. So based on these reasons I believe it is inhumane to release captive colonies themselves and put them in severe danger, and is a bigger reason than any potential environmental risk factors.

 

 

Is this necessarily true though? If you collect queens from the wild, their mother colonies have already gone through millions of years of evolution. I would assume the reason the majority of queens don't make it mature colonies is not necessarily due to poor genetics, but just bad luck. There are a ton of obstacles a newly fertilized queen has to overcome, and surviving a lot of them just has to do with chance. A queen could have the best genetics ever but if a bird eats her as she's digging a founding chamber, there's nothing she could've done about that. That's why for organisms lower down in the food chain, reproduction is all about a numbers game. Produce a ton of babies since only a very small percentage will make it to maturity. 

[PurdueEntomology]

 

 

I don’t see any problem with releasing native ant colonies. Non-native species should be humanely euthanized if one can no longer keep them.

Digging up established colonies from the wild is something I’ve preached against for years on this forum. If you consider how few queens successfully found a colony, each established colony should be celebrated and protected. This is true even for small colonies, which are needed to grow up and replace old ones (consider fishing size limits). When you remove wild colonies, you are removing the genetic all-stars from the breeding pool. A final reason not to do this is that uprooted colonies almost always languish and fail in captivity. Take a stroll through the journals on here if you don’t believe me.
The exception to the above is if you are a legitimate researcher doing real research.

The genetics argument could also be used against releasing any ants as well. So, I'm going to disregard all of you guys' feelings for your colonies for a second and be blunt: chances are, your colonies suck - genetically, that is. The only reason why they're still alive is because they're pampered and sheltered in their captive lifestyle, and could never have established themselves in the wild. Of course a couple percentiles of captive colonies have good genetics, but like I said, most do not. I've also observed that captivity tends to make colonies soft; they don't lose workers except to old age very often, their food is pre-killed and consistent, they don't have to deal with weather or conditions, and their enclosures are sterile in comparison to the wild. Nurture definitely plays at least a limited role in colony behavior and wellbeing. So the combination of the fact that your colony most likely has crappy genetics and they've been pampered to the point of near dependency on their keeper makes it pretty clear that releasing a larger colony would highly increase the risk of that colony's death, or if not put them through a system shock. So based on these reasons I believe it is inhumane to release captive colonies themselves and put them in severe danger, and is a bigger reason than any potential environmental risk factors.

 

I believe to move beyond speculation is to actually in a controlled and monitored procedure release captive endemics and then get the data to see what actually happens to them.  As for invasives or non-endemics NEVER release but destroy. 

 

With the apparently increasing interest in formiculture/ant keeping it would be a worth while scientific research point to actually do a study on repatriation of captive colonies in their endemic ranges and see if there are actually any differences occurring once they are repatriated.  I suspect that there would not be any since unlike human dependent species like the silk moth which is no longer found 'in the wild' but only in human care no ants are 'domesticated', even the honey bee which has been kept by humans for millenia when allowed to swarm and 'go native' easily adjusts to non-apiary conditions.  I suspect the only ants that would have a hard time might  be fungus growers since just placing a colony with fungus under a rock may just cause the fungus to crash.  

[ColdBloodedCritters]

 

 

 

I don’t see any problem with releasing native ant colonies. Non-native species should be humanely euthanized if one can no longer keep them.

Digging up established colonies from the wild is something I’ve preached against for years on this forum. If you consider how few queens successfully found a colony, each established colony should be celebrated and protected. This is true even for small colonies, which are needed to grow up and replace old ones (consider fishing size limits). When you remove wild colonies, you are removing the genetic all-stars from the breeding pool. A final reason not to do this is that uprooted colonies almost always languish and fail in captivity. Take a stroll through the journals on here if you don’t believe me.
The exception to the above is if you are a legitimate researcher doing real research.

The genetics argument could also be used against releasing any ants as well. So, I'm going to disregard all of you guys' feelings for your colonies for a second and be blunt: chances are, your colonies suck - genetically, that is. The only reason why they're still alive is because they're pampered and sheltered in their captive lifestyle, and could never have established themselves in the wild. Of course a couple percentiles of captive colonies have good genetics, but like I said, most do not. I've also observed that captivity tends to make colonies soft; they don't lose workers except to old age very often, their food is pre-killed and consistent, they don't have to deal with weather or conditions, and their enclosures are sterile in comparison to the wild. Nurture definitely plays at least a limited role in colony behavior and wellbeing. So the combination of the fact that your colony most likely has crappy genetics and they've been pampered to the point of near dependency on their keeper makes it pretty clear that releasing a larger colony would highly increase the risk of that colony's death, or if not put them through a system shock. So based on these reasons I believe it is inhumane to release captive colonies themselves and put them in severe danger, and is a bigger reason than any potential environmental risk factors.

 

I believe to move beyond speculation is to actually in a controlled and monitored procedure release captive endemics and then get the data to see what actually happens to them.  As for invasives or non-endemics NEVER release but destroy. 

 

With the apparently increasing interest in formiculture/ant keeping it would be a worth while scientific research point to actually do a study on repatriation of captive colonies in their endemic ranges and see if there are actually any differences occurring once they are repatriated.  I suspect that there would not be any since unlike human dependent species like the silk moth which is no longer found 'in the wild' but only in human care no ants are 'domesticated', even the honey bee which has been kept by humans for millenia when allowed to swarm and 'go native' easily adjusts to non-apiary conditions.  I suspect the only ants that would have a hard time might  be fungus growers since just placing a colony with fungus under a rock may just cause the fungus to crash.  

 

I'm working right now on my Apheanogaster colony and my Myrmica queens. I caught them in my backyard, and I hope to get them to alates next year or two because I have a cool idea of letting the alates fly outside and mate back where they were caught. With what's been discussed though I'm not sure if it's even legal anymore. (Woops. Didn't realize I was in my buisness account. Just forget that I'm in my buisness account and imagine it's my personal account.)

Edited by ColdBloodedCritters, September 13 2022 - 8:55 AM.