16 replies to this topic

[CheetoLord02]

This is a first! Until just two days ago, I had never even seen a parasitic Formica queen, let alone had one for myself. However, as I was walking into a Culver's to eat lunch with AnthonyP163, he noticed a Formica queen out of the corner of his eye. Realizing she was a parasitic queen, we knew that we absolutely had to catch her. Catching her was quite the fiasco, as she was dipping in and out of a drainage grate and dodging us. However, we eventually got her into a test tube. He generously let me have her, as he has 3 queens of his own.

 

 

After lunch, we went and took a scoop out of a Formica subsericea mound to get some pupae. I was informed that there was a chance she would not care for pupae, and if that was the case I would have to introduce her to host workers rather than just pupae. However, to my delight, she almost immediately started carrying and organizing the pupae. She also drank from a small drop of honey that I offered to her.

 

 

 

Within around a day of her having the pupae, her first host worker eclosed. A few pupae seem to have died (most likely damaged during collection), which is a bit unfortunate, but she still has well over 2 dozen pupae left, so I'm positive she'll have enough hosts once they all eclose. I've heard people found queens with less than 10 hosts, so I'm confident I'll have at least some degree of success here, assuming that nothing goes wrong.

 

 

 

I'm really excited to get another parasite success under my belt. I've already successfully founded Aphaenogaster tennesseensis and my Lasius aphidicola colony is going to get their first biological worker within a few days, so I think Formica is the next logical step in the parasite world. I'm really excited to get her going, as parasitic Formica spp. are some of my favorite temperate ants. I have a hunch that this queen is F. aserva, or at least I hope so as they are one of my favorite species of parasitic Formica. Either way, no matter what species she is, I'm super stoked to have her.

 

Edited by CheetoLord02, February 24 2021 - 7:15 PM.

[Kaelwizard]

Don’t you two live in two different states? (Him in Wisconsin and you in Illinois) At least according to your posts in the market place.

[TennesseeAnts]

Very pretty queen!

[Kaelwizard]

Any ideas as to what species it is?

Edit: Oh wait you said it might be F. aserva.

Edited by Kaelwizard, July 23 2020 - 7:47 AM.

[CheetoLord02]

Don’t you two live in two different states? (Him in Wisconsin and you in Illinois) At least according to your posts in the market place.

Yeah, we do, although we regularly go anting with each other in each other's states. I am mentioned several times in his "Anting in Wisconsin" thread. Whenever we are anting out of our state, we just give any catches to the person who lives in that state.

[Kaelwizard]

Don’t you two live in two different states? (Him in Wisconsin and you in Illinois) At least according to your posts in the market place.

Yeah, we do, although we regularly go anting with each other in each other's states. I am mentioned several times in his "Anting in Wisconsin" thread. Whenever we are anting out of our state, we just give any catches to the person who lives in that state.

Oh ok.

[NickAnter]

It doesnt look much like aserva to me.  But rather a similar slave raiding sp.

[CheetoLord02]

This colony is still around and kicking, but they had a rough first season. The queen laid a bunch of eggs at first, but they kept getting eaten, despite my minimal disturbances of them. Eventually the queen gave up on laying and I threw them into hibernation. See you here once they wake up in the spring!

[ANTdrew]

Sounds like typical Formica behavior.

[KitsAntVa]

Nice i'll be following this and apparently someone in Woodbridge Virginia giving away a formica rufa colony that has 100 workers *-*

[RushmoreAnts]

This colony is still around and kicking, but they had a rough first season. The queen laid a bunch of eggs at first, but they kept getting eaten, despite my minimal disturbances of them. Eventually the queen gave up on laying and I threw them into hibernation. See you here once they wake up in the spring!

Pretty smooth for Formica.......

[CheetoLord02]

Today I took this queen out of hibernation. Only 7 hosts remain, and seeing how I'm in the middle of the desert, getting new host pupae will be a challenge. I'm hoping that these 7 workers will be enough to raise some parasitic workers, or else this queen might be in trouble.
 

 

 

Still, they went through hibernation smoothly. No workers seem to have had any issues and the queen is already being pretty active. I gave them a liquid feeder with sunburst for when they decide to start foraging.

Here's a decent shot of the queen. Hard to see her true coloration in the mini hearth, but you get the idea.

 

[CheetoLord02]

Update 1/28

We have eggs! It took quite a while, but over the last few days the queen has laid just a few eggs, looks like 5 or 6 to me. Hopefully this time around they actually develop and don't get eaten like what happened last year.
 

[benxixi]

so cool

[CheetoLord02]

Update 2/24

Excuse the crappy photo, but we have pupae! For whatever reason it took around 3 weeks for the eggs to hatch, which is about 3x as long as I should have expected. Then the larvae stage blitzed by in only ~5 days, and now we have our first pupa! I think there'll be 4 biological workers in this first generation, but the queen does continue to lay quite well, so it won't stop there.
 

[Kaelwizard]

I'm excited to see the bio workers.

[Canadant]

Congrats!