34 replies to this topic

[bunyan]

Hey everyone!

I was looking at some random species of ants and started wondering if anyone here or in the world has ever kept Eciton burchellii (army ant) as pets. If so, could anyone give me a link to the person who has? Thanks in advance!!!

[123LordOfAnts123]

It's been attempted several times by institutes and zoos with nearly unlimited resources and while short term observation of colonies is possible, they ultimately fail within a year. This link highlights some of the issues encountered by keeping them.

http://tropicalhouse...ew_products.php

As of today I'm unaware of any success in keeping any species of army ant long term.

Edited by 123LordOfAnts123, May 24 2017 - 9:52 AM.

[Batspiderfish]

It's unethical for hobbyists to keep colonies of army ants from Dorylinae, because their uncommon colonies produce only one viable queen every 1-2 years; that, and their hitherto 100% failure rate in captivity, even under the care of well-funded institutions.

[Serafine]

There are some ants that simply are not meant to be kept as pets. These ants WILL get out of any setup or die trying.

[Barristan]

It's unethical for hobbyists to keep colonies of army ants from Dorylinae, because their uncommon colonies produce only one viable queen every 1-2 years; that, and their hitherto 100% failure rate in captivity, even under the care of well-funded institutions.

 

Do they reproduce more often if myrmecologist collect and keep them or why is it only unethical for hobbyists to keep colonies?

[Vendayn]

 

It's unethical for hobbyists to keep colonies of army ants from Dorylinae, because their uncommon colonies produce only one viable queen every 1-2 years; that, and their hitherto 100% failure rate in captivity, even under the care of well-funded institutions.

 

Do they reproduce more often if myrmecologist collect and keep them or why is it only unethical for hobbyists to keep colonies?

 

Dunno to that question. But I'm pretty sure agriculture, construction, the massive use of spraying pesticides (especially to combat mosquitoes) does more harm to them (and many other animals/insects) than a random dude coming and collecting a single queen. Especially in South America, there is a gold mining show (think its on Discovery), and WOW...so much destruction from mining gold and other resources down there. Tons of destruction of entire forests. They had a show (or have) in Alaska as well, and just miles and miles of land destroyed by mines.

 

Then all the pesticides to combat mosquitoes doesn't only go in the air, but pollutes the land and water as well. That is a problem in the US is all the pesticide/construction/destruction of land, but an even bigger problem in other countries that have more mosquitoes or/and lack of regulations on agriculture.

Edited by Vendayn, May 24 2017 - 12:08 PM.

[Vendayn]

Many marauding ants (Dorylus in Africa, Army ants in the Americas) are near impossible if not impossible to keep though. I'd never go out and collect a colony. If wild animal parks and professionals have failed at keeping them, pretty sure the average ant keeper is going to have massive problems as well.

 

With the exception that maybe someone has so much money, they can make (or hire people to make) a massive huge enclosure for them and also hire professionals to maintain it. But, then might as well see them outside at that point lol. And even then, it probably wouldn't work too well. I'd rather personally have other ants at that point

[ultraex2]

You could always get a super colony of yellow crazy ants!  Some guy posted last week about his YCA colony with over 100 queens... not quite army ants but that's at least a LOT of ants.

[Vendayn]

You could always get a super colony of yellow crazy ants!  Some guy posted last week about his YCA colony with over 100 queens... not quite army ants but that's at least a LOT of ants.

Yeah, that was pretty cool. Even I, who really really doesn't like invasive/non-native ants thought they were pretty cool. Not just how many there were, but they actually looked really pretty. The only invasive ant I've seen in pictures or in person that I actually thought were unique (in terms of how they look) lol. They are quite invasive though.

[Batspiderfish]

 

It's unethical for hobbyists to keep colonies of army ants from Dorylinae, because their uncommon colonies produce only one viable queen every 1-2 years; that, and their hitherto 100% failure rate in captivity, even under the care of well-funded institutions.

 

Do they reproduce more often if myrmecologist collect and keep them or why is it only unethical for hobbyists to keep colonies?

 

Hobbyists have really unclear or vain/self-serving motivations to keep unusual ants. Myrmecologists have structured, documented, scientifically progressive motivations to keep unusual ants. The myrmecologists who have studied Dorylinae in any capacity tell us that from what information is available, the collection of colonies from the wild by hobbyists, for no good reason, is not advisable.
 

[Barristan]

I don't see why it is less unethical for myrmecologist to collect a colony if it's unethical for hobbyist. Does keeping rare ant species solve any important problem of mankind? If not, what is the justification for scientist to keep an ant species?

[Martialis]

I see we're falling into another debate, can we please avoid it?

[Serafine]

You could always get a super colony of yellow crazy ants!  Some guy posted last week about his YCA colony with over 100 queens... not quite army ants but that's at least a LOT of ants.

If you want semi-nomadic predatory ants you could as well get Pheidole or Carebara. Both are extremely aggressive. These are at least keepable.

 

[...] than a random dude coming and collecting a single queen.

As if it was just a single queen.

If someone found a way to easily keep them all the kids would go on a shopping spree because army ants are such cool chinpokomon and we'd see so many young colonies getting collected that it'd be a wonder if they wouldn't go extinct.

Edited by Serafine, May 24 2017 - 1:14 PM.

[Batspiderfish]

I don't see why it is less unethical for myrmecologist to collect a colony if it's unethical for hobbyist. Does keeping rare ant species solve any important problem of mankind? If not, what is the justification for scientist to keep an ant species?

 

Dude, myrmecologists may like ants, but they only ever keep them for very specific reasons which they can write reports about. We can read those reports and apply them to ant-keeping directly, to understand the biology of a species or their place in the ecosystems we all depend on, or apply them in creative ways to directly lucrative projects (to robotics, for example). If you've ever talked to a myrmecologist, they'll often tell you that keeping ants for its own sake is boring in comparison to their behavior in the wild.

 

Hobbyists may or may not have the skills to organize and produce scientific literature about ants, but I'm yet to see it happen. The reasons that hobbyists get into ants are pretty consistently for aesthetic, niche prestige, or simply as something to be inspired by or reduce stress. It would be extremely generous to assume that the average hobbyist has altruistic reasons to do anything with ants. Collecting queens in reasonable, minimally harmful situations is the only thing I will advise for. One foundress queen every 1-2 years does not fall under that category.

I agree that we should not start another debate on this thread, and that the topic I dedicated to this subject would be more appropriate: http://www.formicult...lonies-as-pets/

[Barristan]

Can you name a report which improved the way I keep my ants which was published in the last 5 years?

 

Most of myrmecology these days is:

• renaming species
• describe new species

So many new species are discovered but we know almost nothing about the already described ones. What use is this for mankind, what use is this for the animals itself? I ask because you think it isn't unethical for these scientist to do the same thing you say it's unethical for hobbyist. But I don't see any justification which would make it less ethical.

Edited by Barristan, April 3 2020 - 12:36 AM.

[Serafine]

Can you name a report which improved the way I keep my ants which was published in the last 5 years?

Camponotus endosymbionts and heating (give your Camponotus some cold periods from time to time, unless they're tropical ones):
https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC3905736/

There's also a recent study about ant color vision but I can't find it right now (ants can see red light although they get problems if it's dark red at weak intensity, that helped me to build the flashlight I use to watch my Camponotus ants).


However the majority of knowledge that is acquired is not directly related to antkeeping and that's for a good reason - unless scientists want to study ants for very specific reasons (color vision, visual perception, certain behavior patterns, endosymbionts) they have little to no interest in keeping ants at all.

Edited by Serafine, May 24 2017 - 2:24 PM.

[Martialis]

 

Can you name a report which improved the way I keep my ants which was published in the last 5 years?

Camponotus endosymbionts and heating (give your Camponotus some cold periods from time to time, unless they're tropical ones):
https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC3905736/

There's also a recent study about ant color vision but I can't find it right now (ants can see red light although they get problems if it's dark red at weak intensity, that helped me to build the flashlight I use to watch my Camponotus ants).

 

 

 

Can you name a report which improved the way I keep my ants which was published in the last 5 years?

Camponotus endosymbionts and heating (give your Camponotus some cold periods from time to time, unless they're tropical ones):
https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC3905736/

There's also a recent study about ant color vision but I can't find it right now (ants can see red light although they get problems if it's dark red at weak intensity, that helped me to build the flashlight I use to watch my Camponotus ants).

 

 

I'm not sure this would really effect him because Barristan keeps nonnative tropical Camponotus.

[Barristan]

Camponotus endosymbionts and heating (give your Camponotus some cold periods from time to time, unless they're tropical ones):
https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC3905736/

They heated up small plastic boxes in an incubator to 37.7 °C during daytime. Do you think that's how most of the ant keepers keep their ants? I only heat parts of the nest, so ants can decide if they want to move to cooler or hotter areas inside the nest. Do you think this study is really of any use for ant keepers. I don't think so. But maybe you heat up your Camponotus to 37.7 °C cooking them alive and praise science that they provided you with the vital information that this is not good for ants and their symbiotic bacteria...

There's also a recent study about ant color vision but I can't find it right now (ants can see red light although they get problems if it's dark red at weak intensity, that helped me to build the flashlight I use to watch my Camponotus ants).

I know that study. I cover all of the nests my ants live in with card board so almost 0 light regardless of the frequency will go inside. So again not an improvement for me and a lot of other ant keepers who don't use red film.

But maybe they should make a study about humidity in nests of ants living in dead wood. That could actually confirm that a lot of ant species which live in dead wood don't need moist nests at all.

[Serafine]

There IS a study about the humidity requirements Camponotus pennsylvanicus - larvae start to develop deformations at an air humidity level of 20% and below.

This of course can't be directly projected on all other species of Camponotus but considering that (unless a room is air-conditioned like hell) typical room humidity rarely falls below 40%, yes this does mean most (if not all) Camponotus nests do not need to be hydrated.

Edited by Serafine, May 25 2017 - 12:29 AM.

[bunyan]

You could always get a super colony of yellow crazy ants! Some guy posted last week about his YCA colony with over 100 queens... not quite army ants but that's at least a LOT of ants.

Could you link me to his thread? It sounds really interesting!