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BMM's Tetramorium Tsushimae Journal

tetramorium tsushimae missouri journal

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15 replies to this topic

#1 Offline BMM - Posted March 7 2018 - 10:59 PM

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About Tetramorium tsushimae

 

This species is also known as the Japanese Pavement Ant. As the name would suggest, they're native to Japan and other temperate areas in East Asia. However, they've established a small foothold in the US, specifically the St. Louis area. It's thought that they were accidentally imported during the St. Louis World Fair in 1904. Since then they've displaced our common Pavement Ant, Tetramorium immigrans. A study from 2006 indicated that they were continuing to spread along the major highways out of St. Louis, expanding into central Missouri and southern Illinois. There are also reports of them appearing in other urban areas in the US, likely imported from St. Louis or abroad, but it's difficult to confirm due to their similarity to T. immigrans.

 

Differentiating T. tsushimae from T. immigrans isn't easy. There appears to be three observable differences. The easiest but least consistent difference is their coloration. Some colonies appear the have a notably lighter mesosoma. An example can be seen here. However, I've examined various colonies in the St. Louis area and have yet to find any with this coloration, so it may not be a very consistent indicator of the species. Photos of this species in their native range seems to show both variations. The second difference between the two species is their size. T. tsushimae workers tend to be between 2.5-3.0 mm and the queens are about 6.0-6.5 mm. In both cases this is a little bit smaller than T. immigrans. The third difference is that T. tsushimae is highly polygynous. In observing numerous different colonies, I've yet to find one that didn't have multiple queens. Simply flipping over a rock or disturbing a small mound often reveals at least two or three. This contrasts with T. immigrans colonies, which are usually described as monogynous past the founding stage. In order to feel more confident in differentiating the two species, I previously contacted Dr. James Trager and he suggested that T. tsushimae's limited range, smaller size, and polygynous nature are some of the best characteristics for an amateur identification. 

 

Because I live in the one part of the US where this species is common, I've taken some time to observe their behavior. On an individual level, they seem very similar to T. immigrans. However, there are some differences in overall colony behavior. As mentioned above, their colonies often contain many queens. I haven't confirmed whether all of the queens are fertile, but the ones found in the nest are all wingless and never travel outside. This leads me to believe that they are. Their colonies do have nuptial flights in the summer, around late June and early July. The flights seem to start once morning temperatures reach about 75-80°F. However, the term "flight" might be misleading. I spent several mornings watching their nest entrances and some of the queens leave already wingless. This makes me think that these queens have already mated in the nest, like some other polygynous species do. Once the queens leave the nest, they often fall victim to the workers of other colonies. Shortly after sunrise. it's easy to find large clumps of workers attacking queens on the sidewalks. However, the queens themselves don't seem to be aggressive towards one another. I've put up to five queens together and they never attacked each other. However, the survival rate among the queens I caught was quite low. About 75% of them died before the end of the year. The deaths appeared to be natural. Interestingly, all of the winged queens I caught died.

 

My Colonies

 

3/8/18

I have two colonies of these, but will only be following one here. This colony contains two queens. Both were caught in early July of last year. There was originally one additional queen with them, but she never shed her wings and eventually died. It took a little over a month for their first workers to arrive. The colony gradually grew until I put them into hibernation at the start of November. They numbered about 40 workers at that time. I kept them in a wine chilller set at 50°F and took them out this past week. There were a few casualties due to a little bit of leaking within the test tube. Four or five workers drowned. In order to keep the colony safe I moved them into a fresh test tube. Currently they don't appear to have any eggs or larvae, so it'll be a little bit before the colony starts growing again. I'll update again once some more workers are on the way.

 

Here are a few pictures of them after the move.

 

ttsushimae 01
Side shot of one of the queens and some of the workers
 
ttsushimae 02
Top down view of the queens and workers
 
ttsushimae 03
Close up of some workers from the top
 
ttsushimae 04

Close up of a worker from the side


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#2 Offline T.C. - Posted March 7 2018 - 11:27 PM

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Nice pictures, the majority of people don't get good shots of this species due to their small size.


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#3 Offline VoidElecent - Posted March 8 2018 - 12:57 PM

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Wow! Beautiful! They remind me of Pheidole mixed with Tetramorium.



#4 Offline AnthonyP163 - Posted March 8 2018 - 1:25 PM

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Although highly unlikely that they're in my area, I may have some of these. I caught 3 queens in July 2017 and put them in a small dirt setup. As I moved them out, there were still 3 queens! I was totally perplexed, as in my last colony the queens fought by September, that seemed to be the case with most others too.

 

I could be overthinking, but the small worker size is another thing that I have noted within this species, compared to my single-queen colonies.

 

I am putting together the queens, since I separated them, and I'm going to see how long they will stay with each other (if they go back together)



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#5 Offline BMM - Posted March 22 2018 - 6:08 PM

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New Eggs

3/22/18

 

After a drop of sugar water and a small cricket, some new eggs have finally arrived! They're too small to count, but it looks like there's about two dozen of them. Since they've been out of hibernation for a couple of weeks now, I set up a heating pad near their test tube. That's keeping the temperature around 75°F most of the time and will hopefully speed up the development a little. If all goes well, this year's first workers should emerge sometime next month.

 

ttsushimae 05

Some workers caring for the eggs


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#6 Offline BMM - Posted April 8 2018 - 12:32 PM

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Feeding Time & More Eggs

4/8/18

 

The colony is doing well and seems to be fully out of hibernation mode. Their appetite looks to be on the rise as well. This week in addition to their normal menu I gave them a few sesame seeds since I've heard other Tetramorium species enjoy them. I'm not 100% sure whether they liked them, but a couple of workers spent quite a while dragging the seeds around. A peek into their test tube reveals that they've got two large clutches of eggs. If there are any larvae or pupae in there, I can't see them right now. I'm hopeful that the population will start rising this month.

 

ttsushimae 06
A tiny buffet of sugar water, sesame seeds, and cricket
ttsushimae 07

One egg pile up front and another behind it just out of focus


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#7 Offline BMM - Posted May 13 2018 - 11:25 AM

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Shag Carpet & A Growing Egg Pile

5/13/18

 

These girls have developed an interesting habit that I haven't seen in any of my other colonies: they really love to carpet the bottom of their test tube with cotton fibers. They do it extremely fast too. I scraped it out one day to make feeding a bit easier and by the next day it was back. At this point I've just accepted it. You can see some of it in one of the pictures below. As far as growth goes, they seem to just be expanding the egg pile. I haven't seen any larvae or pupae showing up. They've been quite voracious with their food for the past few weeks, so I think I need to increase the amount of food to encourage more growth. 

 

ttsushumae 08
Some workers tearing into a cricket
ttsushumae 09

The queens sitting near their eggs


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#8 Offline BMM - Posted May 28 2018 - 11:09 AM

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New Outworld

5/28/18

 

Feeding times have gotten a bit annoying lately. Workers come spilling out of the test tube and their poor climbing skills mean I've had to spend a lot of time scooping them back up. So to solve that problem I made an outworld for them this past weekend. Pretty basic but with as messy as these girls are I didn't want anything too elaborate.

 

ttsushimae 10

Their new outworld


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#9 Offline BMM - Posted June 1 2018 - 7:58 PM

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Termite Feast

6/1/18

 

Today we had a huge termite nuptial flight. I caught about a dozen alates and brought them home as treat for this colony. Despite all the termites dying (due to heat), the workers proceeded to bite and sting them for a good half hour. I checked on them a few hours later and they had dragged all the termites into the test tube to feed on.

 

ttsushimae 11
The first workers discover the termites
 
ttsushimae 12

Close up of the workers going to town


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#10 Offline Enderz - Posted June 1 2018 - 8:07 PM

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Looks like they had fun with those termite alates, funny how careful ants are with even dead insects.


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#11 Offline NickAnter - Posted June 22 2019 - 11:42 AM

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Are they still alive?

Hi there! I went on a 6 month or so hiatus, in part due, and in part cause of the death of my colonies. 

However, I went back to the Sierras, and restarted my collection, which is now as follows:

Aphaenogaster uinta, Camponotus vicinus, Camponotus modoc, Formica cf. aserva, Formica cf. micropthalma, Formica cf. manni, Formica subpolita, Formica cf. subaenescens, Lasius americanus, Manica invidia, Pogonomyrmex salinus, Pogonomyrmex sp. 1, Solenopsis validiuscula, & Solenopsis sp. 3 (new Sierra variant). 


#12 Offline ANTdrew - Posted June 22 2019 - 5:39 PM

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Any Tetramorium colony, especially with multiple queens should be at 2,000 workers by now.
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#13 Offline Kaelwizard - Posted June 23 2019 - 6:08 AM

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I would like an update too.

#14 Offline AntsDakota - Posted June 29 2019 - 1:39 PM

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Here we have two species of Tetramorium. (I could tell by the different sizes of alates.) Smaller species seems to dominate over the larger species, as you have observed, BMM. I also kept a polygynous colony of the smaller species. Although I have never seen any bicolored workers, could it be possible that this species has come this far north as well?


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#15 Offline LIFEsize - Posted October 27 2020 - 1:11 PM

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Appreciate you writing this journal wish you'd continue or update :) I remember you corrected me years ago on this species and yes everything in this is valid from my experience. I have a tsushimae colony and they are pretty explosive with just 2 queens alone. I put a wild colony of them into captivity and they have adapted very well. I have had them in the past from queens in test tubes and they grew slower which I think they do their best when they're in large numbers. I would like to start a couple new journals plus care sheets starting next year and this may be one of the species I would like to cover, except going from queen to colony only using my established colony as a reference point to study their growth comparing captivity to wild.
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#16 Offline ZTYguy - Posted October 27 2020 - 7:40 PM

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Was just looking through this journal and I am loving it. I did notice that the queens are the same size as my Camponotus workers. Can't beleive they are that small, you are an amazing photographer.


Ant Keeping Since June 2018
Currently Keeping:
A. versicolor, C. us-ca02, C. yogi, C. Vicinus, C. laevigatus, C. clarithorax, C. maritimus, C. ocreatus, M. mexicanus, M. placodops 01, V. andrei, V. pergandei, N. cockerelli, P. barbata, P. montanus

Hoping to Catch This season:

M. romanei, M. placodops 02, P. imberbiculus, Polyergus sp., F. moki, A. megomatta, Cyphomyrmex sp.,Temnothorax sp.






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