11 replies to this topic

[Jay]

I read that bulldog ants can have as few as a couple of hundred individuals in a colony, and I'm wondering if anyone can point me to a list of other species with similarly small colonies. Thanks!

[dean_k]

Only few larger ant species form moderately small colonies. From what I've researched, bigger the ants, smaller their colonies are.

 

Diacamma comes to my mind. Their max colony size is only few hundreds in wild.

 

Otherwise, you can manually dictate size of colonies by restricting protein intake.

[Jay]

Whoa. That's fascinating. I hadn't even known there -were- queenless ants, much less ones in which an egglaying worker bites the gemmae off other workers! Thanks.

[dean_k]

If I had the choice, I'd keep two species.

 

Messor and Diacamma.

 

Messor is harvester ants that chew seeds and then mix it with their saliva to make a bread which they store to eat later. They are easy to control and care for. Just control amount of seeds you give them and you control their colony size. No insect part building up in their nests. You don't even need to give them sugar water.

 

Diacamma is hunting ants. They have exceptionally good eye sight. They are big and aggressive enough to take a whole mealworm and eat it without any difficulty which ultimately means you just throw a mealworm or two and they will be happy.

 

Both species are easy to care for and have special behaviors. However, Diacamma needs a big outworld since they hunt. They get stressed if they can't run around.

Edited by dean_k, April 16 2015 - 10:32 AM.

[Crystals]

If you are looking for a species that takes up very little room, you could look at Myrmica (most species I have seen only get a few hundred workers), Leptothorax/Temnothorax - small ants with small colonies.

 

Camponotus grow fairly slowly, but are quite large in size and a nest with 50 workers would definately take up more space than a nest with 50 Leptothorax.

 

As for a list of species, where are you located?  It is much easier to get species in your area.

Or are you just looking for interest?

[Ants4fun]

Also Ponera, which are a bit harder to raise, have small workers. 

[Ants4fun]

And Psuedomyrmex...

[Jonathan21700]

Also most  Ponerinae ants have small colonies. From 10 to 500 workers. But they are hard to raise.

[Myrmicinae]

Some other North American ants with mature colonies under 100 workers: Hypoponera spp., monogynous Tapinoma sessile, Formicoxenus spp. (these nest within or near Formica and Myrmica colonies), Cardiocondyla spp., Myrmecina spp., Amblyopone spp.

 

Jay - What is your location?

Edited by Myrmicinae, April 16 2015 - 3:39 PM.

[cpman]

Also, if you are up to the task and in the southern US, Cyphomyrmex is an attine with small colonies of TINY ants.

Others without huge colonies that haven't been mentioned include Strumigenys and Trachymyrmex.

 

All three of these are likely difficult to care for, due to the specialized diet of Strumigenys, and the fungus of the other two.

[Jay]

Thanks so much to everyone. This is hugely helpful. I'm actually just a myrmecology fan to the extent of having read Wilson and Holldobler's books, and am trying to turn my son onto the world of ants. We easily found examples of supercolonies, but I told him that I was sure that there were some very small colonies, too--and some with multiple queens--and I thought it'd be a fun way to start looking into ants more closely. Starting with the small colonies and working our way up! Very, very much appreciated!

[dean_k]

There are, pardon my language, [censored] of different ants with so many varieties.

 

Some are really weird. How weird? There are vampire ants that use their own brood as food source.  They don't suck their brood dry but they suck just enough while their brood matures.