61 replies to this topic

[dspdrew]

7-29-2013
 
I found this Pheidole vistana queen on July 26th 2013, in Trabuco Canyon, Southern California, wandering in a dry riverbed just after dark. This is a species I had been hoping to find for quite some time now. Really, I would have been happy to find any large sized Pheidole.



I put her in a test tube when I got home, and she started laying eggs an hour later. It looks like she's up to about 17 already.


 

 

[dspdrew]

Update 8-8-2013
 
This queen now has a massive amount of eggs, and even some larvae too. She has them kind of spread around and not in a very neat pile.


 

[dspdrew]

Update 8-9-2013

 

The queen just died.

[Gregory2455]

Quick ending to an ant I see you want really bad.

[dspdrew]

Yeah, I was pretty pissed. I'm glad I have P. desertorum now though, they're almost exactly the same.

[Gregory2455]

Yeah, I was pretty pissed. I'm glad I have P. desertorum now though, they're almost exactly the same.

 

That is good.  

I think right now i would do anything for xerophilla or gilvescens, something not in the fallax group.

[dspdrew]

Update 7-1-2015
 
I found another one of these queens in Trabuco Canyon, California on 6-28-2015. It was just wandering around on a dirt road at about 9:00 pm.
 
A day or two later it removed its wings and laid a small pile of eggs.
 

 

 
 
Pheidole vistana and P. desertorum look extremely similar, and are hard to tell apart. After doing a lot of reading, and studying pictures, I think I've figured out how to tell the queens apart. One of the most obvious characteristical differences between the workers is how P. desertorum has spines that look more similar to thorns and are directed posteriorly, while P. vistana has spines that are skinnier, like little spikes, and point upward slightly. Well I noticed on queens, it seems the spines actually curve inward a bit as you can see in the picture below. This also supports my suspicions about the two queens I found that night, because this one was a lot more yellowish, as P. vistana are.
 

 
 
Hopefully I have better luck with these this time.

[dspdrew]

Update 7-29-2015
 
The queen got her first workers about five days ago, and I moved their test tube into a foraging container.
 

 

 

 

 

Edited by dspdrew, June 20 2020 - 8:31 AM.

[PogoQueen]

Population explosion! What set up are you planning on putting them in?

[dspdrew]

Good question. I forgot to mention it. I just moved their test tube into a foraging container.

[Foogoo]

Wow, those legs are no joke.

[Vendayn]

That is a lot of workers! And they look cute.

[dspdrew]

Update 8-30-2015

 

The workers were consistently dying for a while, and then yesterday I found the queen dead.

[Gregory2455]

So sorry Drew.

[Foogoo]

That's a major bummer, these looked like a really cool species. I'm assuming you don't have any indication of what may have been the cause?

[dspdrew]

Nope. No idea. I do still have my P. desertorum, which are doing really well, and look a lot like this species.

[dspdrew]

Update 6-19-2016

 

I found another one of these queens wandering around on the ground on 6-17-2016, in Trabuco Canyon, CA. I just put it in a test tube setup for now.

[dspdrew]

Update 6-19-2016

 

Well that lasted long. The queen drowned in a test tube flood.

[Tpro4]

This species seems to not survive that well

[dspdrew]

Well I don't think this one wanted to drown.