Should throw away the antscanada nest, its not good for any ants and it isn't good to support him since he keeps invasive ants and releases invasives to the wild. Any pet kept indoors should NOT go outdoors and should be killed native or not, and antscanada teaches the opposite. For formicariums, you should buy a tarheel formicarium which are a ton better. Or instead make your own and you can have a project to work on with your kid.
Why should you kill natives instead of releasing them? I would understand invasives but natives? Also, the kits are like 80$, I wouldn't just throw that away.
Any indoor pet, insect, animal or otherwise that goes outdoors can spread disease and damage/destroy the ecosystem. Dogs and cats are a good example of common pets that wreck havoc, and should be killed if taken outdoors. How many dogs and cats kill wildlife even if the dog/cat is domestic, they still kill tons of animals. And for ants or anything else (like dogs/cats too as examples) as said can spread disease and parasites outdoors. Just look at covid, while it originated from a wild bat, the bat WAS captured and then sold for food and that is how it started. All pets, insect, animal etc should all be kept indoors as soon as they are caught or taken indoors in anyway. Even if a pet is kept in a container, who knows what contaminates are in that container that can spread through the ecosystem.
As for antscanada nest, that is just a formicarium designed to kill ants. I've never seen a longterm nest succeed in one.
I disagree with this statement, you mention dogs and cats as an example of a captive animal that will kill a lot of animals if left unattended to, this statement is true, but that is only because dogs and cats have been bred into captivity for thousands of years and are no longer a part of the ecosystem, ants on the other hand (unless they are invasive), have not been bred in captivity for thousands of years and (if caught in your yard) are still a part of the ecosystem, but on the subject of pathogens, I don't really feel like an ant kept in captivity would catch a disease that would destroy an ecosystem,if there was a pathogen that would destroy an ecosystem in our house, it would be outside as well, air from outside comes in all the time, and air from inside goes out all the time, your house isn't a biosphere, and people release ant's all the time, and so far ecosystems around the world haven't collapsed in on themselves, anyways, lets just drop it and help this new antkeeper, shall we?
While I agree to a point.
This one is about toads
https://www.scienced...80922122427.htm
Where captive toads were reintroduced and spread disease (a fungus) which actually made the situation worse
And
https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC2842694/
Where fish farms actually create even deadlier disease, which if those fish were ever put in the wild would decimate the fish populations.
No study has been done on reintroducing ants, but there is no reason to not believe that captive ants can get something that evolves worse than they'd otherwise get. It happens to fish, toads and a lot of other things, so I don't see how ants could be the exception. But, I'll agree that there has been no long term study on reintroducing ants or releasing captive ants. There however been studies and two I linked found pretty quick, and found that the rule is more that disease, fungus, parasites etc, tend to get worse in captivity.
You make a valid point, but both of these events where because of breeding/farming, with the frog one, the disease already existed, and, as the article states:
"The new study suggests that an endangered species of frog from South Africa, Xenopus gilli, which was housed in the same room as the Mallorcan midwife toads, was responsible for spreading the infection to them"
Which means that the disease already existed and was spread to them in captivity, and then afterwards they where released, and the disease spread in the wild, the fish on the other hand, oh boy, have you ever been to a fish farm? It's not the cleanest place, their kinda just cramped in a pool of water that is probably full of fish poop and pee, the stock trucks as well, both packed with fish, a very nice spot for a disease to evolve and spread, these fish where also bred for stock, not food or repopulation of endangered species, so they are not as regulated or watched over for diseases, fish also get released in areas that they where not caught in, which gives the pathogen more opportunity to evolve, so until a study comes out that ants carry pathogens with the potential to destroy an ecosystem, I rest my case
Edited by Froggy, July 28 2020 - 8:16 PM.
