8 replies to this topic

[Solenoqueen]

Queen 1:
1. Caught in Mission Trails, San Diego, CA.
2. Caught 8/13/20
3. Desert Scrub Habitat, bordering Chaparral.
4. ~12 mm
5. Queen is bulky and yellow, with the top of the thorax patterned a bit with orange hues. Gaster is yellow, and banded with three thick faded brown stripes. No hairs noted with the naked eye.
6. Head is more elongate than wide. Mandibles dicondylic, and rather inconspicuous. Gaster is more rounded and ovular in comparison to most ant queens I've noted. Bulky.
7. Oddly lax when inside of a test tube.
8. N/A
9. Alate caught at 10PM. No others were seen.
Queen 2:

1. Caught in Mission Trails, San Diego, CA.
2. Caught 8/13/20
3. Desert Scrub Habitat, bordering Chaparral.
4. ~4 mm
5. Queen is slender and black. Mandibles and appendages are red.
6. Body is ponerine-shaped. Antennae are unusually long and visibly elbowed outwards. Gaster is very long proportionate to rest of the body.
7. Extremely fidgety, even flying in the test tube at times if exposed to light. Only calm when drinking.
8. N/A
9. Alate caught at 10PM. No others were seen.
(pictures of Queen 2 will be very blurry, it was very fidgety)

[Kaelwizard]

Queen 1 might be Formica or Camponotus and Queen 2 is indeed a Ponerine but I don’t know what species are present in Cali.

[M_Ants]

Lucky! I wanted to go yesterday but I couldn't. Where did you find the Ponerine? Also the the first ant is Camponotus festinatus group likely fragilis.

[ponerinecat]

Only ponerine like that is Hypoponera. Give her a petri dish or a premade founding nest.

[Solenoqueen]

Only ponerine like that is Hypoponera. Give her a petri dish or a premade founding nest.

How do you suggest I set it up?

[ponerinecat]

A small dish of soil works surprisingly well, if you press a small plate of glass/plastic into the surface, preferably in a corner, she'll likely dig a chamber underneath it for easy observation(or you can make a small depression with a tunnel leading out for her). You can also make a small founding nest out of plaster, hydrostone, etc, and I've even used wood in the past with decent success. Keep the nest well hydrated and humid. Feed her dead insect parts for the time being, maybe a few springtails, and a little bit of sugar.

[Solenoqueen]

Any thoughts on the first queen then? Seems a bit small to be fragilis, maybe it’s absquatulator?

[M_Ants]

deleted

Edited by M_Ants, September 21 2020 - 8:06 PM.

[M_Ants]

Turns out these are probably absquatulator.