29 replies to this topic

[Aaron567]

Great pics and cool queens. You're lucky; this year I found a queen of this species for the first time ever but her eggs never developed because she was unmated. It's interesting seeing multiple people get winged queens of this species to larvae. I've found that winged Pheidole queens are almost never mated, but maybe tysoni is a bit of an exception to this. 

[CatsnAnts]

Great pics and cool queens. You're lucky; this year I found a queen of this species for the first time ever but her eggs never developed because she was unmated. It's interesting seeing multiple people get winged queens of this species to larvae. I've found that winged Pheidole queens are almost never mated, but maybe tysoni is a bit of an exception to this. 

What's even more strange is that my two solitary queens of this species were even attempting to fly out of their collection container when I caught them, yet both of them now have worker pupae. It would seem like they have some deceptive tactics to trick us into releasing them, oh no they're evolving! 

[CatsnAnts]

Update 8-17-2020

The first workers eclose in two of my colonies. I currently have five single queen colonies now, all with pupae, after I had to split up my three queen colony. One queen is missing half of her limbs, but hopefully she will get workers to help her out soon.


#1 Pheidole tysoni (1 queen):

This colony was the first to get a worker this morning, with colony number two following shortly after. The worker is very pale, but should eventually harden into a nice yellow color. She was pretty shy at first, but eventually she came on top of the brood pile for some photos:





#2 Pheidole tysoni (1 queen):

This colony also got a worker today!

Edit: also, leave your name suggestions down below for queens 1 and 2

Edited by CatsnAnts, August 17 2020 - 1:03 PM.

[madbiologist]

Interesting that you had them as pupae for a full 18 days in colony number 1, what's the temperature where they were kept?

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[CatsnAnts]

Interesting that you had them as pupae for a full 18 days in colony number 1, what's the temperature where they were kept?
Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

They were kept at approx. 74 degrees F. I don’t have a heater available, and it’s not very warm where I’m keeping them, so that’s probably why it took so long.

[Antkid12]

Cuuute!

[madbiologist]

Well, it's prompted me to put my best tysoni queen onto the heat cable, and I'll see if it takes any extra time for the other fertile one to reach workers.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[CatsnAnts]

Update 8-30-2020

 

 

#1 Pheidole tysoni (1 queen):

 

I've now limited myself down to two colonies, one of which came from the original 3 queen colony. This queen, however, was founded by herself and appears to be doing well with several workers. Sorry for the poor quality, the test tubes are quite dirty and produce a bad glare.

 

 

 

#2 Pheidole tysoni (1 queen):

 

This queen was given all of the brood from the other two queens that were originally part of this colony as they were not doing well, but this has to be one of my favorite colonies, if not my favorite colony so far.

 

[ANTdrew]

I love their reddish coloration.

[TheAntGuy]

I agree! The color is very nice on these.