34 replies to this topic

[Antennal_Scrobe]

     Two days ago, on 6/21/19, after a few hours of searching, I found a mature colony of Temnothorax curvispinosus inside a hollow twig. I placed the two halves of the stick (Which I snapped to find the colony) into an old Hexbug fishbowl I found in the basement, with a foil-wrapped test tube for them to move into. The ants drank from a drop of raw honey, and, while they were not especially active, seemed to be settling in to their new home. This morning, I peered through the tiny entrance hole in the test tube's foil covering, and to my delight, a worker was inside. Hopefully, this is a sign that they will soon begin their unusually well-studied moving process and abandon the sticks forever. I plan to build for them a small formicarium once this happens.

Edited by Antennal_Scrobe, August 15 2019 - 1:29 PM.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

     More workers seem to be interested in the test tube. Please take note, sedentary Camponotus colony.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

I will build a PTAntFan $3 Tower for them as a more permanent home.

[CatsnAnts]

This genus is my one of my favorites! Good luck !

[Antennal_Scrobe]

I'm not really sure when I should give these guys a mealworm. They don't seem very needy, but I'll give them something later today I think.

[CatsnAnts]

Temnothorax will eat what you give them, but they can go for a long time without food. So I wouldn’t worry too much.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Thanks.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Oh no. I saw a couple workers wandering just outside their setup. I managed to round them up, I reapplied the fluon barrier, and put a paperback over the top of the container as a makeshift lid, just in case. I doubt that any more ants escaped, and am almost certain that the colony could not have relocated, since I was in my room a lot today, and would have seen them. I guess I missed a spot when I applied the fluon.

Edited by Antennal_Scrobe, June 24 2019 - 3:17 PM.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Would it be safe to dump the ants out of their sticks and onto a soft cotton ball?

[ponerinecat]

Yes

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Bad news. I dumped them out, and there are large, black workers along with the normal little orange ones. I think they are T. americanus, a slavemaking species, and I will have to let them go. Can Temnothorax americanus be cared for in captivity, or would I have to raid wild acorn ant nests every other week for brood?

[Antennal_Scrobe]

I see they are classified as "vulnerable" so I will let them free regardless. In the same place I found them of course.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Well, I let the T. americanus colony free, and decided to try and find another acorn ant colony, which I did. The larvae that popped out of the this stick when I broke it were smaller and a different color, so I am pretty sure these are T. curvispinosus this time. They better be.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

The queen was wandering around last night, I'm not sure why. Is this one of those species where some of the alates stay behind and become "super workers"? Either way, she was easily able to cross the fluon barrier, so thank goodness I used that book as a lid.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Today I "disturbed" their stick nests by breaking up the sticks and dumping out as many ants as possible onto a cotton ball, in an attempt to force them to move into the test tube. I now know that they have at least two queens and a lot of brood, but surprisingly few workers. I caught a queen and a worker with a larva and put them in the foil covered test tube, hoping they would realize its nest potential.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

So I made them a formicarium and put in a queen and worker. The worker inspected the nest before setting the pupa it was carrying down and eventually leaving. The queen is caring for the pupa right now, and it seems they find my formicarium suitable.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

They later moved out of said formicarium, back into the hollow twigs. I have seen workers exploring the nest, though, so I don't think they rejected it.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

I thoroughly emptied the sticks of ants and brood, leaving them with only the formicarium in an otherwise bare outworld. There are four queens, about eleven ants, and a lot of brood.

Edited by Antennal_Scrobe, July 16 2019 - 2:48 PM.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

They moved in! Two of the queens, most of the workers, and all of the brood call this nest home now. The rest of the rest of the colony lives in a satellite nest in the corner, which I suspect they will abandon once they realize it isn't a nest. They hungrily drank from a drop of raw honey. Before they started using the formicarium, I made a few minor edits, removing the perlite, and connecting the water and living chambers with a thin piece of cotton, to wick up water and prevent drowning. Oddly, the smallest queen is acting very much like a worker, wandering around, conversing with other ants, drinking from the drop of honey, and engaging in generally un-queenly behavior. I suspect that she may actually be an infertile queen who, like many Temnothorax dealates, joined an existing nest, and because she could not act as a queen, became a sort of quasi-worker.

Edited by Antennal_Scrobe, July 17 2019 - 7:08 AM.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Actually, I think the small queen might be Temnothorax minutissimus, a workerless inquiline species. I guess if I see any small alates hatching I will be able to prove my theory.