17 replies to this topic

[Jonny8040]

Hey guys,
I’ve been doing a lot of research on Argentine ants and these little guys are everywhere near my house. Being extremely polygynous, could I collect a bunch of workers and a few queens, would they breed within their nest and have new queens or not? Has anybody had experience keeping these?

Thanks!

In Jesus,
Jonny

[SleepyAsianAnter]

Yeah you can probably have a large colony in no time. But they have been shown to not do that well in captive care. 

[TechAnt]

Also you can’t release them as they are invasive, also only experienced ant keepers should take care of them. They can outgrow set-ups quickly and escape because of their numbers, they also are not best kept in captivity as SleepyAsianAnter said. Overall I would not recommend keeping them unless you have the space, time, food and water (which they need a lot of), and experience to keep. Also no, I don’t believe they inbreed, they need males to come from other nests to fly into their nest to mate with female alates.

Edited by TechAnt, August 8 2020 - 1:19 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Are you certain you’re not seeing Tapinoma sessile? I really, really hope you’re not see Argentines everywhere. The two species look and act very similar.

[Antkid12]

Yeah, you are likely seeing Tapinoma sessile. Do you have some pictures?

[Jonny8040]

I don’t have any pictures at the moment but they are small ants that form huge trails like crazy with queens only a little bigger than the workers but clearly are queens.

[ANTdrew]

Most likely Tapinoma sessile. They’re doing the trail thing in my kitchen as I type.

[Jonny8040]

Most likely Tapinoma sessile. They’re doing the trail thing in my kitchen as I type.

Haha 😆. After you said that I researched them and I heard that they breed withIn their nest with their own brothers. So technically, you could get a few queens and workers and start a massive super colony? With time of course?

[TechAnt]

Most likely Tapinoma sessile. They’re doing the trail thing in my kitchen as I type.

Haha . After you said that I researched them and I heard that they breed withIn their nest with their own brothers. So technically, you could get a few queens and workers and start a massive super colony? With time of course?

Yes, you could actually.

[Vendayn]

How to keep Argentine ants

 

Step one:
Find them

 

Step two:
Kill them

[RushmoreAnts]

How to keep Argentine ants

 

Step one:
Find them

 

Step two:
Kill them

Step three:

For every colony killed, two more take its place.

[ponerinecat]

T sessile queens are near worker size, L. humile queens are maybe twice the size of workers.

[Vendayn]

 

How to keep Argentine ants

 

Step one:
Find them

 

Step two:
Kill them

Step three:

For every colony killed, two more take its place.

 

Kinda true. But an extensive pest control operation really dents their numbers. Argentine ants aren't infinite, even they have a limit.

 

The owners of the area I live in, they've been spraying the Pheidole megacephala and Solenopsis invicta here for the past month or so (the entire complex they've sprayed). Every day, they spray in the morning and again in the evening, so its quite an operation. I think the apartment complex or whoever owns the land outside the complex discovered the invasive ants I reported. I dunno if it was my report itself cause I never got feedback on my report, but it does seem like they may been forced to act on the invasive ants. And this is during covid as well, and they are still spraying twice a day. It be nice if my report did something, but I dunno. At least after all this time they are doing something. I'm guessing they were forced to, but no idea. 

 

They've also sprayed the entire area around a pond and along the river, not just inside the complex. And while the focus is probably on the Pheidole and S. invicta, this has made a massive decrease in Argentine ants. Enough where I've seen a native Solenopsis xyloni colony and a Pogonomyrmex sp. colony popup nearby. The area the native ants appeared in, used to be so dominated by Argentine ants that not even Solenopsis invicta or Pheidole megacephala together could take.

 

The Argentine ants will probably come back after some years, but there are huge areas where they are just completely gone and native ants are already returning. 

Edited by Vendayn, August 9 2020 - 1:14 PM.

[TechAnt]

How to keep Argentine ants

Step one:
Find them

Step two:
Kill them

Step three:
For every colony killed, two more take its place.

Kinda true. But an extensive pest control operation really dents their numbers. Argentine ants aren't infinite, even they have a limit.

The owners of the area I live in, they've been spraying the Pheidole megacephala and Solenopsis invicta here for the past month or so (the entire complex they've sprayed). They've also sprayed the entire area around a pond and along the river. And while the focus is probably on the Pheidole and S. invicta, this has made a massive decrease in Argentine ants. Enough where I've seen a native Solenopsis xyloni colony and a Pogonomyrmex sp. colony popup nearby. The area they native ants appeared in, used to be so dominated by Argentine ants that not even Solenopsis invicta or Pheidole megacephala together could take.

The Argentine ants will probably come back after some years, but there are huge areas where they are just completely gone and native ants are already returning.

I wish my area would do that... all I have seen around here is one Camponotus spp. Worker and a dead Pheidole vistana queen which was being eaten by Argentines. Everything else was Argentines, Argentines, and Argentines.

Edited by TechAnt, August 9 2020 - 1:11 PM.

[Vendayn]

 

 

 

How to keep Argentine ants

Step one:
Find them

Step two:
Kill them

Step three:
For every colony killed, two more take its place.

Kinda true. But an extensive pest control operation really dents their numbers. Argentine ants aren't infinite, even they have a limit.

The owners of the area I live in, they've been spraying the Pheidole megacephala and Solenopsis invicta here for the past month or so (the entire complex they've sprayed). They've also sprayed the entire area around a pond and along the river. And while the focus is probably on the Pheidole and S. invicta, this has made a massive decrease in Argentine ants. Enough where I've seen a native Solenopsis xyloni colony and a Pogonomyrmex sp. colony popup nearby. The area they native ants appeared in, used to be so dominated by Argentine ants that not even Solenopsis invicta or Pheidole megacephala together could take.

The Argentine ants will probably come back after some years, but there are huge areas where they are just completely gone and native ants are already returning.

I wish my area would do that... all I have seen around here is one Camponotus spp. Worker and a dead Pheidole vistana queen which was being eaten by Argentines. Everything else was Argentines, Argentines, and Argentines.

 

I edited it in a bit late. But I think they must have got forced to. I dunno if my report on the Pheidole megacephala and Solenopsis invicta did anything, reported them last year and again months ago and never heard anything back. But even with covid going around, they are out every day spraying. I thought at first maybe it was because many garages and apartments got invaded by Pheidole megacephala, but they wouldn't spray outside the complex for that because its supposed to be a nature reserve. So I can only imagine someone IDed the invasive species and the apartments had to deal with it, since they are the same company who own the nature reserve. That or its because of what happened last year and it took them a long time to act on it (which is typical for a large company really). Last year, someones small dog died due to Solenopsis invicta, which was really sad.

 

But yeah. They spray twice a day (morning+evening), every day for over a month now for the entire area. I dunno how long they will keep doing it, but every day for over 30 days definitely made Argentine ants take a massive hit to their numbers. And the plus side, the Solenopsis invicta I can't find anymore, all their mounds are just empty or have dead ants. And the Pheidole megacephala are just gone. Though for some of it, the apartments also dropped water usage for landscaping by a huge amount. Which also made any ant reliant on moisture take a population drop (or just gone all together). And with how dry this Summer has been, that combination of things (less watering, pest control and super dry summer) might make a huge difference in this area in the shortterm.

 

I probably won't be here next year though, but we ended up stuck halfway in the moving process to covid, so I won't know most likely how things will be longterm here.

[ANTdrew]

T sessile queens are near worker size, L. humile queens are maybe twice the size of workers.

Tapinoma queens are not worker sized. They are at least double worker sized.

This Aus Ants video glorifying keeping these ants should be taken down.

[Kaelwizard]

T sessile queens are near worker size, L. humile queens are maybe twice the size of workers.

Tapinoma queens are not worker sized. They are at least double worker sized.

This Aus Ants video glorifying keeping these ants should be taken down.

Sigh, he literally killed them after the video. He said he was going to freeze them.

[zantezaint]

And in another dimension, the ants are talking about how we are the invasive pests....