14 replies to this topic

[ttt]

Hey. 

 

New member here. I have kept ant colonies and founded them. However, I notice that is hard to found a colony from a single queen verses just maintaining a colony and there are some ants that are rather cryptic and hard to find. 

I think a captive breeding program can make this hobby more accessible and raise awareness for new species. Obviously not every single ant can be captive bred and the ants that are eligible must be able to mate in nest and bud with polygyny being an important but not necessary condition. 

As a Californian, two ants that will perfectly fit the criteria are Aphaenogaster Occidentalis and Pseudomyrmex Apache. In the case of aphaenogaster, colonies can reproduce by budding and the ones in my area are polygynous with up to 12 queens (in my experience) so if someone is able to raise a colony to maturity and somehow induce flights in multiple alate broods at once, then we can get queens and even add a few workers to the queen to make founding easier. In terms of Pseudomyrmex, they are exceedingly rare as I've only found them once. From what I read, they do cooperative founding and may be pleo. Foreign males fly into new nests and mate with queens inside so if we can get two colonies to produce alates at the same time, and connect the nests, mating will be doable. From what I observed with Manica species, this setup may work as well but they seem more tolerant to each other so you can probably connect multiple nests with little fighting

 

Other native species that may be possible are hypoponera, stigmatomma, myrmica, forelius, Manica, and obviously monomorium and tapinoma. Let me know if anyone has any experience with breeding.

Edited by ttt, September 8 2020 - 10:26 AM.

[Manitobant]

Breeding has been tried before and is almost impossible unless your species naturally inbreeds.

[ttt]

Breeding has been tried before and is almost impossible unless your species naturally inbreeds.

Polygynous colonies do not necessarily need to inbreed as the genetics of each queen are different. 

[Spazmops]

 

Breeding has been tried before and is almost impossible unless your species naturally inbreeds.

Polygynous colonies do not necessarily need to inbreed as the genetics of each queen are different. 

 

AC is trying something like this. I’m sure he’ll make a 25-minute video on it and tell us in the last 30 seconds whether or not it worked.

[TechAnt]

 

 

Breeding has been tried before and is almost impossible unless your species naturally inbreeds.

Polygynous colonies do not necessarily need to inbreed as the genetics of each queen are different. 

 

AC is trying something like this. I’m sure he’ll make a 25-minute video on it and tell us in the last 30 seconds whether or not it worked.

 

Cmon dude, can't you just say "AC is trying this" seriously. I'm sick and tired of people talking about AC and just adding some insult or something. This like always leads to an AC thread, don't get me wrong he is all entertainment and trying to make people buy his stuff. But we don't need to corrupt every thread that is about something similar to what AC is doing or whatever.

Edited by TechAnt, September 8 2020 - 11:45 AM.

[Spazmops]

 

 

 

Breeding has been tried before and is almost impossible unless your species naturally inbreeds.

Polygynous colonies do not necessarily need to inbreed as the genetics of each queen are different. 

 

AC is trying something like this. I’m sure he’ll make a 25-minute video on it and tell us in the last 30 seconds whether or not it worked.

 

Cmon dude, can't you just say "AC is trying this" seriously. I'm sick and tired of people talking about AC and just adding some insult or something. This like always leads to an AC thread, don't get me wrong he is all entertainment and trying to make people buy his stuff. But we don't need to corrupt every thread that is about something similar to what AC is doing or whatever.

 

I wasn’t trying to ‘corrupt’ anything. I wasn’t sure if ttt knew that AC was doing an experiment similar to this, so I told him. Granted, the insult wasn’t necessary.

[ttt]

 

 

 

Breeding has been tried before and is almost impossible unless your species naturally inbreeds.

Polygynous colonies do not necessarily need to inbreed as the genetics of each queen are different. 

 

AC is trying something like this. I’m sure he’ll make a 25-minute video on it and tell us in the last 30 seconds whether or not it worked.

 

Cmon dude, can't you just say "AC is trying this" seriously. I'm sick and tired of people talking about AC and just adding some insult or something. This like always leads to an AC thread, don't get me wrong he is all entertainment and trying to make people buy his stuff. But we don't need to corrupt every thread that is about something similar to what AC is doing or whatever.

 

 

I know similar things have been done in Asia with polygynous colonies of polyrhachis and carebara and there's reports of it done with myrmica and Aphaenogaster here so its definitely not just AntsCanada. Breeding has been done, but not necessary with local species that will be available. 

[ponerinecat]

 

 

 

 

Breeding has been tried before and is almost impossible unless your species naturally inbreeds.

Polygynous colonies do not necessarily need to inbreed as the genetics of each queen are different. 

 

AC is trying something like this. I’m sure he’ll make a 25-minute video on it and tell us in the last 30 seconds whether or not it worked.

 

Cmon dude, can't you just say "AC is trying this" seriously. I'm sick and tired of people talking about AC and just adding some insult or something. This like always leads to an AC thread, don't get me wrong he is all entertainment and trying to make people buy his stuff. But we don't need to corrupt every thread that is about something similar to what AC is doing or whatever.

 

 

I know similar things have been done in Asia with polygynous colonies of polyrhachis and carebara and there's reports of it done with myrmica and Aphaenogaster here so its definitely not just AntsCanada. Breeding has been done, but not necessary with local species that will be available. 

 

It's been done in the asian ant community, but those guys tend to keep their secrets secret. Breeding is also possible with numerous NA species(just not easy).

[ttt]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know similar things have been done in Asia with polygynous colonies of polyrhachis and carebara and there's reports of it done with myrmica and Aphaenogaster here so its definitely not just AntsCanada. Breeding has been done, but not necessary with local species that will be available. 

 

It's been done in the asian ant community, but those guys tend to keep their secrets secret. Breeding is also possible with numerous NA species(just not easy).

 

There was a thread on antstore about carabera breeding and plenty on Baidu tieba of harpegnathos and polyrhachis doing similar (using google translate). I think they've also have had success with some of the monogyne ponerines (ectamomyrmex). It would be great if someone who knows Chinese or Japanese to translate them and upload them here. 

 

I think with polygynous species that mate on the ground like myrmica, monomorium, aphaenogaster occidentalis breeding is fairly straightforwards although it may take some time for colonies to create alates. 

Edited by ttt, September 8 2020 - 2:53 PM.

[DDD101DDD]

I know that Canadian anter has done it with Stigmatomma. Here's the thread. https://www.formicul...ma/#entry159817

[ponerinecat]

Mmm, a lot of the cryptics should be simple enough to breed.

[gcsnelling]

Depends on your definition of cryptics.

[ponerinecat]

True.

[ttt]

I feel a lot of ponerines should be simple enough. Many exotic ones have already been done such as diacamma, Rhytidoponera and harpegnathos although it is kinda cheating in the latter

[Triggerhippy888]

Here is someone who managed captive breeding, really good video. Aphaenogaster rudis

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=tbzVrYypOE0