6 replies to this topic

[Aaron567]

Camponotus nearcticus

 

Camponotus nearcticus is a species in the subgenus Myrmentoma that is one of the most widespread ants in North America, found in southern Canada and nearly every US state. Regional color variation is very noticeable in them, as southeastern populations are completely black while specimens found in the northeast or midwest may have a significant amount of red on them.

 

On May 1, 2019 at around 9:00 PM I found a single Camponotus nearcticus queen among a few other smaller Myrmentoma queens. Today (May 6) she just shed her wings and laid her first egg. I concluded that she is C. nearcticus rather than C. caryae based on the fact that she largely lacks erect hairs on the malar parts of her head and clypeus. C. caryae are also much rarer than nearcticus are in most of the southeastern US.

 

May 1, 2019

 

May 6, 2019

Edited by Aaron567, February 11 2021 - 9:15 PM.

[Rstheant]

Amazing photos!

[Aaron567]

June 15, 2019

 

The first nanitic eclosed today. Soon there will be an additional three.

 

[ANTdrew]

Update?

[Aaron567]

Update?

 

The last colony died but I currently have a single queen with a pupa. I caught her on March 30.

 

[Aaron567]

November 1, 2020

 

The queen in my last post went on to grow a colony of around 30 workers at its maximum point, but since then quite a few workers have died. For a while I wasn't feeding them much so that probably has something to do with it. Anyway, I put this colony into diapause a couple weeks ago, starting at 65 degrees F (18.3C), and now they're at 60 degrees. 

 

The queen still has a little piece of wing left, and there are something like 14 workers. You can see their little clump of small larvae that are in diapause.

 

[Aaron567]

February 11, 2021

 

Last month I took this colony out of diapause. It was a pretty slow start, because most of the larvae they had through diapause died and they only had 3 left. They also took a long time to start growing for whatever reason. The queen has laid a surprising number of eggs since then, though. They're trying to make up for when I starved them last year and let their colony dwindle down to almost nothing, but I'm glad they're looking so great now. There are 13 workers.

 

The single pupa that you can see is from one of the three larvae that made it through the whole diapause.