23 replies to this topic

[AntaholicAnonymous]

What's up.
I wanna get a new ant colony next season and since it'll be one of 2 I wanna keep for a very long time I wanna be educated on the best species I can look out for.

I have manica rubida wich are large European fire ants and since I keep both colonys in large natural setups I need active ants like manica that are a lot on the surface.

Since there's many people keeping camponotus I thought I'd ask if you got any recommendations or any things that are good to know about camponotus since I haven't had much experience with them.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Or any other species but I had my eyes on camponotus cause I like large ants but I'm open for anything

[Broncos]

Well, camponotus take sooooo long to grow and if your in Europe, they hibernate. They may be good if you are the patient type. I personally love pogonomyrmex because of their wide variety of food interests. But they are not the easiest to keep. Because sometimes the queens just die.
I am looking forward to getting a pheidole hyatti because they are fast growing and amazing to watch and, can have multiple queens. The only downer is that they are small.


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[Manitobant]

You should get messor barbarus or pheidole pallidula. Both species are polymorphic and the former is a seed harvester.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Well, camponotus take sooooo long to grow and if your in Europe, they hibernate. They may be good if you are the patient type. I personally love pogonomyrmex because of their wide variety of food interests. But they are not the easiest to keep. Because sometimes the queens just die.
I am looking forward to getting a pheidole hyatti because they are fast growing and amazing to watch and, can have multiple queens. The only downer is that they are small.


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I'm patient but I don't wanna wait 3 years to get a decent colony.
The best for me would be a species where I know the location of a wild nest to boost them.

I have that situation with my manica colony they take long too and next season I'll boost the hell out of them and introduce more queens later.

I don't see myself getting smaller ants tho I kept lasius for about 4 years and especially with my massive natural tanks I do I wouldn't be able to see very much action.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

I think one of my best bets would be to look for camponotus nests. Then ID them if they seem fitting to me and then try to catch or buy a queen and boost her after her first season.

I could do a smaller set up with some pheidole but I need large ants for my next tank I wanna do.

[Broncos]

Well, camponotus take sooooo long to grow and if your in Europe, they hibernate. They may be good if you are the patient type. I personally love pogonomyrmex because of their wide variety of food interests. But they are not the easiest to keep. Because sometimes the queens just die.
I am looking forward to getting a pheidole hyatti because they are fast growing and amazing to watch and, can have multiple queens. The only downer is that they are small.


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I'm patient but I don't wanna wait 3 years to get a decent colony.
The best for me would be a species where I know the location of a wild nest to boost them.

I have that situation with my manica colony they take long too and next season I'll boost the hell out of them and introduce more queens later.

I don't see myself getting smaller ants tho I kept lasius for about 4 years and especially with my massive natural tanks I do I wouldn't be able to see very much action.

Yea I agree. I would go with a messor species because they don’t take to long to grow and are polymorphic. What is your idea?


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[Broncos]

There are lots of ants to be sold in Europe for cheap. I wish it was that easy in California. I have to pay about $100 for an ant colony.


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[NickAnter]

If I were you, I would like Lasius flavus.  Their coloring is amazing, though they are relatively slow growing and small.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Camponotus nicobarensis is fast growing and easy to keep, and does not need to hibernate as it is a tropical species. 

[ANTdrew]

One issue with Camponotus in a natural set up is that you’ll basically never see them. I had a 50 worker colony in a tank this summer, and I only saw one or two foragers every few days.
I think really active and fast growing ants are best for natural set ups. How about Crematogaster scutellaris?

[AntaholicAnonymous]

There are lots of ants to be sold in Europe for cheap. I wish it was that easy in California. I have to pay about $100 for an ant colony.


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Weed is legal in Cali you don't have the right to complain. lol

But I think where I live there's a lot more species and way more queens available due to the environment.
Lots of forests and grasslands that's ideal for ants Cali is pretty hot and dry in comparison.

Many colonies are probably imported so I can imagine many test tubes have been in 3 different anuses and over several borders before you get them so that has its prize. haha

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Messor sounds pretty good to me actually.
I don't have any experience with them but they seem interesting.

They are also very easy to buy where I live.
I'll probably go with messor barbarus.
I'm so glad I asked cause I would have been pretty disappointed with camponotus.

I love this forum in general.
Before this I bothered friends and family with this stuff and even tho all people I talked with think ants are awesome and interesting you're still not gonna stumble upon many ant keepers.

[Broncos]

There are lots of ants to be sold in Europe for cheap. I wish it was that easy in California. I have to pay about $100 for an ant colony.


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Weed is legal in Cali you don't have the right to complain. lol

But I think where I live there's a lot more species and way more queens available due to the environment.
Lots of forests and grasslands that's ideal for ants Cali is pretty hot and dry in comparison.

Many colonies are probably imported so I can imagine many test tubes have been in 3 different anuses and over several borders before you get them so that has its prize. haha

Yea but we have lots of pogonomyrmex in the desert areas. I went to a large forest and found what it seems to be rainbow ants. But mostly carpenter ants in forests. It was cool to see another species of ant that I had never seen before.


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[Broncos]

Messor sounds pretty good to me actually.
I don't have any experience with them but they seem interesting.

They are also very easy to buy where I live.
I'll probably go with messor barbarus.
I'm so glad I asked cause I would have been pretty disappointed with camponotus.

I love this forum in general.
Before this I bothered friends and family with this stuff and even tho all people I talked with think ants are awesome and interesting you're still not gonna stumble upon many ant keepers.

So true. Although my friends don’t want to hear any of it. I literally have one friend that says he might try ant keeping. that’s the one problem with ant keeping. You can’t relate to anyone.

[NickAnter]

I have a couple friends who are pretty interested. The others think I'm bonkers.

Messor sounds pretty good to me actually.
I don't have any experience with them but they seem interesting.
They are also very easy to buy where I live.
I'll probably go with messor barbarus.
I'm so glad I asked cause I would have been pretty disappointed with camponotus.
I love this forum in general.
Before this I bothered friends and family with this stuff and even tho all people I talked with think ants are awesome and interesting you're still not gonna stumble upon many ant keepers.

So true. Although my friends don’t want to hear any of it. I literally have one friend that says he might try ant keeping. that’s the one problem with ant keeping. You can’t relate to anyone.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

[quote name="NickAnter" post="131251" timestamp="1572963896"]

I have a couple friends who are pretty interested. The others think I'm bonkers.


I think the trick is njt to talk about it too often and not get into detail.

I always bring up army ants and the bridges they make out of themselves over water or in between gaps.
Things like the bullet ant sting and weaver ants webbing their nest or anything that's normal to us but sounds crazy to people who only see them on the sidewalk.

I keep being asked about them every now and then.
It also helps having a pretty setup. If I show a couple moldy acrylics with critters inside of course they don't feel it.
But the first thing that people wanna look at when they come over is the big fire ants in the large natural tank I made.

If you present it right you can get more people exited about ants then I thought

[Mdrogun]

 

There are lots of ants to be sold in Europe for cheap. I wish it was that easy in California. I have to pay about $100 for an ant colony.


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Weed is legal in Cali you don't have the right to complain. lol

But I think where I live there's a lot more species and way more queens available due to the environment.
Lots of forests and grasslands that's ideal for ants Cali is pretty hot and dry in comparison.

Many colonies are probably imported so I can imagine many test tubes have been in 3 different anuses and over several borders before you get them so that has its prize. haha

 

California, the state, has more species than any European nation save for Spain. Even with Spain, the difference is menial enough a few reclassifications could turn the tide. I also highly, highly doubt that any European nation has a higher biomass of ants than California, but there are no scientific studies I could find on the subject; It would only be speculation.

Edited by Mdrogun, November 5 2019 - 12:12 PM.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

 

 

There are lots of ants to be sold in Europe for cheap. I wish it was that easy in California. I have to pay about $100 for an ant colony.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Weed is legal in Cali you don't have the right to complain. lol

But I think where I live there's a lot more species and way more queens available due to the environment.
Lots of forests and grasslands that's ideal for ants Cali is pretty hot and dry in comparison.

Many colonies are probably imported so I can imagine many test tubes have been in 3 different anuses and over several borders before you get them so that has its prize. haha

 

California, the state, has more species than any European nation save for Spain. Even with Spain, the difference is menial enough a few reclassifications could turn the tide. I also highly, highly doubt that any European nation has a higher biomass of ants than California, but there are no scientific studies I could find on the subject; It would only be speculation.

 

In Europe, however, it is legal to keep exotic ants, so while the native diversity may be paltry there compared to North America, a much wider variety of ants are available to hobbyists.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

We'll I've been to Cali and the land seemed quite dry so I assumed there not to be as many ants due to viewer resources of such environments.

I mainly said that cause I thought about how awkward it would be to be caught at the airport with an exotic ant colony in your anus but thanks for the clarification.

Both europe and US are in the shadow of tropical countries cause they have the most interesting species over there in my opinion.