6 replies to this topic

[AnthonyP163]

so I was reading an article, it said that since Temnothorax typically nest in acorns, they're survival rate isn't very high. The study show that 14 colonies hibernating above ground in their acorns lost a good amount of workers, and the ones that were underground only lost a few. These scientists put the ants underground though. I'm starting to think that Temnothorax arent very common by me because of how cold our winters get and how much snow we get. with windshield it was -29 a week or two ago, we have about a foot of snow. 

 

So if you happen to be up north a bit, and you find a Temnothorax colony, be grateful, because it seems they're not very common.

[AnthonyP163]

How do I delete posts....

 I guess I posted 2 of these. Can a mod delete this one?

Edited by AnthonyP163, December 22 2016 - 3:33 PM.

[Reacker]

Acorn nesting Temnothorax are pretty easy to find. You just open up acorns until you find a colony. 

[AnthonyP163]

Acorn nesting Temnothorax are pretty easy to find. You just open up acorns until you find a colony. 

I did that for an hour in the woods in August, I found nothing except a few Tetramorium workers.

[Reacker]

maybe you don't have Temnothorax in that area then. When I was in DC you could find a colony in under five minutes, as well as even random queens of other species like Cremotogaster. 

[Kevin]

Interesting, I will have to look at some acorns I guess.

[noebl1]

I found tons of the alates flying this summer, but never found any colonies in acorns.  Then again the odds are stacked against me as majority of trees on property are oak, so millions of acorns on the property, so hard to find the handful with the colonies inside (though based on the number of alates I saw, there are a lot.)  Really kicking myself as I just kept two of the many queens I found, then let the 2nd one go the next day as figured didn't need two   Didn't even think about combining them into one test tube...

 

Interetsting species, these snippets are from antwiki.org:

"Nests are located in preformed cavities in structures found in the litter, e.g., in small sticks or nuts. Temnothorax curvispinosus is facultatively polydomous and their nesting arrangements vary with season. In the productive summer months, colonies can fragment and be arranged across numerous nest sites. These vary in queen number, from multiple queens to those that only have workers and brood."

 

"Queen number can vary by colony and season. New colonies are founded by pleoemetrosis and new queens are likely adopted into existing nests. The latter is evident from the presence within populations of both monogynous and polygonous nests. Reproductive queens contain 8 ovarioles.

Worker reproduction does occur with some male production possible from worker derived eggs. Reproductive workers contain 2 ovarioles.

New queens are produced in some queenless nests. These are presumed to be nests that are separated from a queenright nests or from a nest that had earlier lost its queen(s)."