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Monomorium pharaonis


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#1 Offline Myrmecology - Posted June 7 2023 - 3:30 AM

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Heyo everybody, hope everyone is doing well as nuptial seasons approach! May everyone get to experience the beauty of catching their very own queens and raising from scratch

I just wanted to share my journey of keeping this invasive species of ant and my experiences keeping them. Here's a beautiful picture of some of the physogastric queens that are within the colony.

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However, I am aware of their capabilities of being the utmost of escape artists due to their perseverance and amazing foraging trails, I had contemplated for many years before wanting to keep such a species, I've spent a lot of time researching about them including asking other antkeepers about how they contained/kept these ants themselves as well as looking on the professional side of these ants i.e reading a plethora of research papers regarding especially their inbreeding nature and among other factors that makes this species such a prolific ant causing a nuisance across the entire globe!

DISCLAIMER: This species is not for the faint of heart and definitely not for beginners, keep these species at your own risk as I am not accountable for anybody who takes inspiration of impulse buying pharaoh ants due to seeing my post.

But anyways aside from that, I had bought from a friend who has a 20k colony size of these ants on the 10th February 2023, it has been a while since then so I will post from the beginning for those who are unaware.

Originally I bought about 3-4 queens with some brood and workers, little did I know that they would begin inbreeding so early, from the picture below you can see many male pupae present in the nest!

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I reckon I had about 40 or so males eclose, they had eclosed before the queen alates did, and shortly after, the queen alates began emerging. One of the prolifically dangerous aspects of this species is the fact that they will mate as soon as they can in order to start egg-laying as soon as possible, on the very same day the queen eclosed only just after 6 hours they began going into a mating frenzy.

(Camponotus ligniperda queen next to the tube just to show how incredibly small they really are!!).

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At this point I was very excited yet nervous at the same time, in total I had upwards of 16 queens or possibly more, it's difficult to count the queens due to their miniature size, that's 4x the amount of queens that I had originally started with! They had all mated and the males died about a few weeks after.

The amount of eggs they lay is just insane, according to papers they can lay up to 24 eggs per day in their prime egg-laying, and then slowing down to about 6 eggs per day.

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Anyways fast forward to about 2 months into keeping these ants, they've continue to grow larger and larger, their diet consists of 3 adult superworms daily in which they will consume within the very same evening. Here's some pictures of their feeding responses:)

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And I will conclude here, I'll probably post the rest of the colony growth if this post has some good interactions, I've made some cool tubing designs and allocated them into a nest nesting design which I'm very excited to share with you guys.

Hope you enjoyed reading and apologies if this post is way too long

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#2 Online ANTdrew - Posted June 7 2023 - 4:16 AM

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I look forward to following this journal. Periodically culling their population may be a good idea! 


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"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#3 Online Ernteameise - Posted June 7 2023 - 11:00 AM

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This is interesting.

I would never dare keeping this species, but at a guess, if you are experienced enough and know how to keep them in check, you will get a good experience out of it.

I am curious how this develops.


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#4 Offline Myrmecology - Posted June 8 2023 - 1:30 AM

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This is interesting.
I would never dare keeping this species, but at a guess, if you are experienced enough and know how to keep them in check, you will get a good experience out of it.
I am curious how this develops.

Definitely not a species to underestimate!

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#5 Offline Myrmecology - Posted June 8 2023 - 6:20 AM

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I look forward to following this journal. Periodically culling their population may be a good idea!


I will be trying to grow them out as much as I can handle them and then perhaps place in some measures to control the population, culling seems to really be the only way to control their population as protein starving them would only increase their desperation to escape! I will be testing out various experiments.

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#6 Online Ernteameise - Posted June 14 2023 - 12:43 AM

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One question-

I will be giving a talk at a conference about ant keeping, and am looking for some great pictures / stories I can share.

I will also be talking (in very short form, since I only have 45 mins) about introduced ants.

Would there be a chance I could share some of your pictures?

I will acknowledge you in the talk as the source of the pictures (or not mention you, depending on your preferences).

I will better not mention you keep these as pets, but I will talk about the problems with this species. I think these ants would be a great example of the danger of invasives.

Please let me know if this would be okay with you, or not.



#7 Offline Myrmecology - Posted June 14 2023 - 2:16 AM

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One question-
I will be giving a talk at a conference about ant keeping, and am looking for some great pictures / stories I can share.
I will also be talking (in very short form, since I only have 45 mins) about introduced ants.
Would there be a chance I could share some of your pictures?
I will acknowledge you in the talk as the source of the pictures (or not mention you, depending on your preferences).
I will better not mention you keep these as pets, but I will talk about the problems with this species. I think these ants would be a great example of the danger of invasives.
Please let me know if this would be okay with you, or not.

Sure go for it, I think these pictures really do showcase how menacing they can be across the globe and I'd love to help others out in having access to those small details

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#8 Online Ernteameise - Posted June 14 2023 - 6:43 AM

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Very awesome, thank you!

This will be an amazing slide!


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