9 replies to this topic

[Ameise]

I found a tiny Ponera (guessing Ponera pennsylvanica) queen a few days ago. I gave her a small, humid claustral tube which she quickly went into, and attached a tiny outworld with food. For the last few days, she just sat on the wet cotton ball, and today was barely moving. I took her out and gave her sugar water, and she's doing a bit better. I'm not sure what to do, however. Thoughts?

[Leo]

considering they are pretty small, use very small food, place it directly in her test tube

[Ameise]

The thing is... she didn't even leave the cotton ball those three days.

[Batspiderfish]

Ponera pennsylvanica fly in the fall, so this is probably Hypoponera opacior (depending on your location). Three days is too soon for there to be a problem.

[Ameise]

I'm not sure what was wrong. She certainly drank the sugar water I gave her. Prior to that, she was mainly just barely moving and even I had difficulty 'agitating her'. She was just latched onto the wet cotton ball.

[ultraex2]

For semi-claustral queens you have to be really patient.  Just feed her once a week or so and eventually she will lay eggs - granted, it's a different species, but a couple of the semi-claustral Stenamma queens I caught back on 5/13 are just starting to lay eggs/get small larvae.  

Edited by ultraex2, July 3 2017 - 6:38 AM.

[Ameise]

My concern was that she was really weak. I had to directly feed her sugar water (which she happily drank) until she was moving OK again. Edit: She's actually surprisingly OK with being handled gently. Never seen a queen like that. Also, neither the queen nor the workers can climb glass. They can barely walk on it.

 

The setup was/is a 13mm claustral tube that is attached to a very small bit of PVC tubing (which is the 'outworld'). There is a small hole made of epoxy for her to go in and out of in the claustral tube. So, if I feed her, I just put it in the tube outside. However, she showed no interest in anything but that cotton ball.

 

Oh, ultraex2, if you didn't gather, I found another queen . They're not very difficult to find, just annoying because without a loupe or macro lens, they look no different from a worker... so I ended up capturing about 20 workers before finding a queen randomly.

Edited by Ameise, July 3 2017 - 8:51 AM.

[ultraex2]

Yep!

 

There are a few colonies of these in my backyard - haven't found a queen yet, though.

[Ants4fun]

They don't walk well on glass or plastic, probably why she is sticking to the cotton ball. I would make a small plaster formicarium or at least add plaster the the bottom of the tube.

[Ameise]

She died overnight, unfortunately. Half of the interior of the glass tube was coated with superglue with a tiny roll of cork on top of it, so she had a surface to walk on.