6 replies to this topic

[Works4TheGood]

When I read about a particular ant species, the article will usually tell me roughly how large their colonies are. So my question is this: how do colony-sizes in captivity compare to wild ones? For example, P. pennsylvanicus colonies only have about 100 workers, so should I expect the same from one in captivity, or do the bountiful resources I can provide change such things?

[Mdrogun]

When I read about a particular ant species, the article will usually tell me roughly how large their colonies are. So my question is this: how do colony-sizes in captivity compare to wild ones? For example, P. pennsylvanicus colonies only have about 100 workers, so should I expect the same from one in captivity, or do the bountiful resources I can provide change such things?

Camponotus pennsylvanicus colonies get much larger than 100 workers, I don't know how large exactly but I have seen colonies with more than 100 workers. According to Mikey Bustos aka as Antscanada, the colonies can grow to dozens of thousands of workers in the right conditions. I think colony size in captivity depends on how sensitive the species is, how well you replicate the ants environment and what you are feeding them. For example, Tetramorium seem to grow to large colonies in a large variety of conditions but for a species like Prenolepis imparis they have specific temperature requirements and if they aren't met,the colony will do very poorly.

[123LordOfAnts123]

I'm pretty sure OP meant Ponera pennsylvanicus as opposed to Camponotus.

For what it's worth, a two year old colony of Odontomachus brunneus (a Ponerine, like P. pennsylvanicus) I kept last year numbered more than 500 workers. According to a couple pieces of literature aimed at the ecology of the species the largest mature colonies captured and counted never numbered much more than 200 individuals. It's possible this was due to the overlooking and difficulty of locating satellite nests.

The colony did exhibit strange behavior in the form of ritualized larval cannibilism. In such cases as many as 10 workers would single out and proceed to rip apart a larvae near pupation until it was dead within a few minutes. Were it not for the 50% larvae mortality rate due to this strange behavior the colony could have grown much larger as the queen was quite prolific.

[Works4TheGood]

Yes, I was referring to Ponera pennsylvanicus rather than C. pennsylvanicus. C. pennsylvanicus gets enormous; I know that from a pretty unpleasant personal experience.

I find the cannibalism behavior you mentioned to be quite intriguing. I just assumed that the queen stopped laying eggs or the workers just died off. I hadn't considered cannibalism, which is actually a more reasonable behavior because then you always have replacements ready to go in the event of a catastrophy.

[Mdrogun]

 I misread the P as a C

[Works4TheGood]

Now I see the original source of the confusion; the species I was truly trying to reference was Ponera pennsylvanica, but instead I had typed P. pennsylvanicus. My mistake!

[Vendayn]

Well, I don't know about ants in this particular question. And it only very distantly relates. But, captive animals live vastly longer on average than animals in the wild. For ants, captive queens have a vastly higher success rate starting colonies, than wild queens.

 

How that relates to the max number of ants, dunno, it sort of does in a way. But, captive wildlife tends to do a lot better than...well...wild wildlife. 

 

Actually. A VERY good example to this question, is actually Pheidole hyatti.

 

Pheidole hyatti colonies in the wild are pretty small. In captivity, within 3 months, they will have so much brood its crazy. People don't seem to have success with them at a certain point, but they produce more brood and ants in captivity (in short term), vastly more than they do in the wild. They turn almost "invasive" in captivity, which tells me they'd likely be a good candidate for an ant species to be imported somewhere and very easily become invasive.

Edited by Vendayn, July 19 2016 - 8:27 PM.