2 replies to this topic

[Vendayn]

This colony of Pheidole megacephala is a success, have had them for a couple weeks now and they have been laying a lot of eggs. I however realized I have been wrong on how many eggs the queens lay, which has made my anting journal of this species result in completely wrong estimates being given.

 

I have relied on

 

http://entnemdept.uf...gheaded_ant.htm

 

Their "292 eggs a month" for each queen. However, while I do have a lot of queens (not sure how many exactly I ended up with, but its at least five)...the amount of eggs there are and were in the first week does NOT match 292 eggs a month. Either they didn't give them enough food, their environment was wrong (Pheidole megacephala NEED substrate to nest in, like Pogonomyrmex californicus). Or, at least the Pheidole megacephala here are adapted to needing substrate, they do far better with it. Or their estimate was just wrong or something else. Either way, each queen lays a lot more than that a month.

 

Now with the actual colony this journal is about...as I said, they need substrate to nest in. They die without it, and they die fast. Even if kept humid (which is also important), they die fast without any dirt/sand. They also need light, as where they nest is in open wet places that gets a lot of sun, they avoid any area that gets too much shade. So when you see the pictures of my tarheel formicarium...you will see I turned it into a typical substrate setup, it doesn't look nearly as nice (and probably actually looks kind of ugly now) but the ants love it (which is more important for me). And to be honest, I always loved substrate nests anyway since I love watching the ants dig even if I can't see them all the time. The small formicarium to the far left I'm going to add sand today to it and the middle will be just for foraging.

 

Also the stuff on the edges is what I call "glue". Sadly some ants died when I was putting it on But I've had it on for a week and it works great (so far). I used baby powder and grape seed oil and mixed it into a paste. I'll see how it works 1+ month out, but so far it hasn't dried up at all even with the sun hitting it. And even if it dries up, might still be effective as the ants hate it.

 

With all that text out of the way...onto pictures of the setup.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Edited by Vendayn, February 4 2021 - 9:04 PM.

[Manitobant]

I’ve never heard of substrate being an issue with megacephala and have seen them in normal nests. Kinda odd.

[Vendayn]

I’ve never heard of substrate being an issue with megacephala and have seen them in normal nests. Kinda odd.

Mine die really quick without it. Even in other setups that aren't tarheel formicariums they do much worse in setups with no substrate than they do with substrate. I think the best time I did was when drew's fromicariums meant for Acromyrmex, they lived in those but didn't do nearly as good as they did until I put substrate in them.

 

With that said, they also readily nest in rotten wood. They (at least the ones here) actually love rotten wood more than dirt/sand.

Edited by Vendayn, February 4 2021 - 3:49 PM.