16 replies to this topic

[Maciej]

Hello everyone!

My name is Maciej, i'm antkeeper from Poland and i have been around 13 years in the hobby, but i had a little break during which i only had small colony of Temnothorax sp. Last year i decided to come back to more interesting ants because I found some antshops in my country that sell ants i have wanted since i was a kid. Right now i have: 
Odontoponera transversa - single queen with brood
Odontomachus monticola - one queen and one egg
M. barbarus - colony with around 100 or more workers, including some beautifuly colored majors
C. liginiperdus - Q + 3 workers
C. nicobarensis - Q + 20 workers, only minors so far
C. fedschenkoi - single queen that ate all of her brood
T. ceaspitum - one queen and 20 workers (not sure, because the test tube is really dirty)


I purchased Odontoponera around 6 months ago and 2-3 weeks ago she got her first 3 pupae, but today i noticed that one of them is in the outworld, around 2 cm from the test tube she lives in. I have no idea why she has done this, the temperature and humidity seems fine. The discarded pupa isn't in the garbage pile, so i hope she just wanted a little lower humitidy for it. other than that the queen is very active and interesting to observe, easily one of my favourite species. Does anyone have any ideas what's could be the problem with the pupa? 

 

Odontomachus monticola is my newest queen, i had her for only 2 weeks now, she laid her first egg pretty quickly. She is missing a small part of her antenna, but she doesn't seem to care. She isn't very active but i quess that's because she doesn't have any larvea yet. 

 

Rest of my colonies are doing great, apart from C. fedschenkoi. she ate all of her brood few months ago. I'm looking for some pupae to give her, but i have to wait till it's get warmer.

 

 

I will try to take some pictures of other colonies and achieve better quality when i finally get some free time and figure out how to use my camera 

 

I'm very glad to be part of this forum, and i want to apologize for any mistakes, my English is far from perfect.
Have a great day!

[Jakerobs]

Welcome! I know how it can be going in and out of the hobby! Your colonies are looking great. What camera do you use?

[antsandmore]

Hello everyone!

My name is Maciej, i'm antkeeper from Poland and i have been around 13 years in the hobby, but i had a little break during which i only had small colony of Temnothorax sp. Last year i decided to come back to more interesting ants because I found some antshops in my country that sell ants i have wanted since i was a kid. Right now i have: 
Odontoponera transversa - single queen with brood
Odontomachus monticola - one queen and one egg
M. barbarus - colony with around 100 or more workers, including some beautifuly colored majors
C. liginiperdus - Q + 3 workers
C. nicobarensis - Q + 20 workers, only minors so far
C. fedschenkoi - single queen that ate all of her brood
T. ceaspitum - one queen and 20 workers (not sure, because the test tube is really dirty)


I purchased Odontoponera around 6 months ago and 2-3 weeks ago she got her first 3 pupae, but today i noticed that one of them is in the outworld, around 2 cm from the test tube she lives in. I have no idea why she has done this, the temperature and humidity seems fine. The discarded pupa isn't in the garbage pile, so i hope she just wanted a little lower humitidy for it. other than that the queen is very active and interesting to observe, easily one of my favourite species. Does anyone have any ideas what's could be the problem with the pupa? 

20210109_1059181.jpg

 

Odontomachus monticola is my newest queen, i had her for only 2 weeks now, she laid her first egg pretty quickly. She is missing a small part of her antenna, but she doesn't seem to care. She isn't very active but i quess that's because she doesn't have any larvea yet. 

 

20210109_1059071.jpg

Rest of my colonies are doing great, apart from C. fedschenkoi. she ate all of her brood few months ago. I'm looking for some pupae to give her, but i have to wait till it's get warmer.

 

_DSC11451.jpg

_DSC11461.jpg

 

I will try to take some pictures of other colonies and achieve better quality when i finally get some free time and figure out how to use my camera 

 

I'm very glad to be part of this forum, and i want to apologize for any mistakes, my English is far from perfect.
Have a great day!

very nice ants! also, your English is very good. man i really want odontomachus, very cool genus.

[Maciej]

Welcome! I know how it can be going in and out of the hobby! Your colonies are looking great. What camera do you use?

I'm curently using Nikon D90, its over 10 years old and it feels like it, so i'm looking for a new (used) camera. I'm sticking with Nikon, because i have a lot of lenses for it. 

a little update on the pupa situation: The queen keeps moving it all over the outworld which gives me hope it's not dead : D

[Ants_Dakota]

great pics! i love when antkeepers from other countries share their species they keep!

[Maciej]

great pics! i love when antkeepers from other countries share their species they keep!

 

That's one of the reasons i joined the forum, most of the species you guys keep are very exotic for me, so it's cool to learn something new : D

Another mixed feelings update: 

Odontomachus has laid another egg and is getting more and more active, today i even had oportunity to see (and hear!) her crazy fast mandibles in action, when she was hunting a small piece of mealworm. BUT Odontoponera has opened one of the two remaining cocoons and fed the larvae with the pupa. Annoying. I'm considering opening the one cocoon that still lies in the outworld by myself before she eats it or buying small colony of this species and trying to adopt one of the workers to this queen. I heard that they aren't eggresive towards each other, but it's still quite risky.
on the photo you can see almost developed ant being eaten by the larvae: 

[Maciej]

My Odontomachus queen has laid another egg and eats everything I give her, I can even see how her gaster has lightly "strechted" from all the food, i have never seen anything like this on a Ponerinae. I will try to take some pics tomorrow.
But i need some advice regarding my cannibalistic O. transversa: do you guys think it good idea to try and open the discarded cocoon? she hasn't moved it in a few days, but that also means she hasn't eaten eat yet. She hasn't eaten much at all to be honest which is concerning, beceause she has 2 big and 2 small, recently eclosed larvae. The pupa should be eclosing very soon, it is around 26 days old.

To keep the journal a bit more interesting, here are three photos of some of the specimens i have, gueen of the Odontomachus sp., worker of Ponera coarctata (I think), and size comparison between the two:

[Kaelwizard]

I don't think people usually recommend opening up the cocoons, but I haven't had this problem so I'm not sure what the best course of action would be.

[Chickalo]

 

Welcome! I know how it can be going in and out of the hobby! Your colonies are looking great. What camera do you use?

I'm curently using Nikon D90, its over 10 years old and it feels like it, so i'm looking for a new (used) camera. I'm sticking with Nikon, because i have a lot of lenses for it. 

a little update on the pupa situation: The queen keeps moving it all over the outworld which gives me hope it's not dead : D

 

maybe she considers the outworld nesting space?  ¯\_(._.)_/¯

[Maciej]

 

 

Welcome! I know how it can be going in and out of the hobby! Your colonies are looking great. What camera do you use?

I'm curently using Nikon D90, its over 10 years old and it feels like it, so i'm looking for a new (used) camera. I'm sticking with Nikon, because i have a lot of lenses for it. 

a little update on the pupa situation: The queen keeps moving it all over the outworld which gives me hope it's not dead : D

 

maybe she considers the outworld nesting space?  ¯\_(._.)_/¯

 

 

That's what i thought, but a couple days ago I noticed the pupa was on her garbage pile. She didn't move it for antoher couple days so i decided to open the cocoon. Was it a good idea? i don't know to be honest. The only information i got from that is that the pupa was defienietly alive when she threw it away, but i think its dead now, the ant seems kinda deformed. One of the eyes is normal, while the other looks really weird. You can kinda see it on the pictures below.

 

Normal eye:

 

 

Weird eye (sorry for the quality):

 

i also noticed that one antena looks different than the other. 
She still has one pupa left and plenty of eggs and larvae : D

[Maciej]

I've been playing with macro photography lately and i think i have found the "secret" - diffuser. I'm amazed how much this helps : D 

My C. nicobarensis at least doubled their brood pile, i can't wait for first media and major workers!

 

M. barbarus got more active recently, but they are still in diapause, so they have almost no brood at the moment: 

 

 

 

Queenless colony of Temnothorax sp. doing what they do best, which is sitting in their nest all the time: 

 

 

 

and some bonus photos, size comparison between C. liginiperda (which is the biggest ant in europe) and Plagiolepis pygmeae (which is one of the smallest, the only smaller ant is S. fugax if i'm not mistaken) 

 

 

and Ponera coarctata worker: 

 

 

 

 

[ANTdrew]

Superb photos!

[Maciej]

Superb photos!

 

Thank you! 

Odontoponera has now 7 larvea that are growing pretty fast and one pupa. I'm really surprised that it's taking so long. Odontomachus on the other hand eats every egg that's getting close to hatching, so she again, has only two eggs (there were three this morning). Annoying. I know that some of you keep Odontomachus, do you have any tips how to rise a colony from a single queen? Conditions seem perfect and she has 3 test tubes with substrate to choose from (and currently she is sitting in one that's almost completly dry) and eats regulary. 

C. nicobarensis got another 2-3 pupae, so i'm happy that at least one colony is developing without any issues. 

And here is "artistic" photo of M. barbarus colony that has recently moved into the concrete nest: 

 

 

Cheers!

 

[Maciej]

Finally!!! 

After 7.5 months of waiting, yesterday i got my first Odontoponera transvera worker. I can't describe how happy I'm, i was starting to think that there is something wrong with my queen.
not only that, but on the same i got another pupa! Here is a picture, i know that quality is awful, but i had to take photo through 2 layers of foggy and dirty glass 

 

 

Also, Odontomachus has moved to new test tube, with water and substrate (but she removed some of it) so that's also nice, because i will be able to refill this test tube : D

Cheers!

[antsandmore]

Finally!!! 

After 7.5 months of waiting, yesterday i got my first Odontoponera transvera worker. I can't describe how happy I'm, i was starting to think that there is something wrong with my queen.
not only that, but on the same i got another pupa! Here is a picture, i know that quality is awful, but i had to take photo through 2 layers of foggy and dirty glass 

 

20210209_1416541.jpg

 

Also, Odontomachus has moved to new test tube, with water and substrate (but she removed some of it) so that's also nice, because i will be able to refill this test tube : D

Cheers!

nice! good luck with the odontoponera! seems like you're very experienced of a keeper. 

 

Cheers!

[Maciej]

Hello! 

I wasn't very active recently because i have quite a lot going on with new job and other life related stuff, but my ants are doing great (well, some of them at least)

The sad news is that my C. fedschenkoi queen has died. its very unfortunate, she died the same day i got her some pupae, in fact, she died right before i tried to give them to her. I suspect that the honey i gave her has spoiled, because 2 workers of T. caespitum colony had the same symptoms before dying and these were the only two colonies i fed. 
 

Odontoponera are doing kinda well, i guess. they have 5 larvae and 2 eggs, i moved them recently to a new formicarium i made, but they still live in the same test tube, the nest is probably too big for them right now. 

 

 

Odontomachus monticola ate most of her eggs and doesn't eat as much as she used to. I'm currently looking for some pupae to give her, hopefuly this will help her. 

C. nicobarensis are doing great, the colony has doubled in size and they are getting more and more active. 

 

 

Messor barbarus and C. liginiperda are also doing great, but nothing noteworthy has happend. 

And some big news (at least for me  )

I got two new spiecies: 

Polyrhachis illaudata, single queen with three larvae and some eggs, she is absolutely beautiful. tbh, i'm surprised she survived the journey, because the seller did really bad job when it comes to packaging. No heatpack or any insulation apart form a piece of paper wrapped around test tube (temperatures are still below freezing at night where is live) 

 

 

And Rhytidoponera metallica! I got single queen with some brood and gave her 4 pupae i got from other seller and all of them have eclosed already. They are simply spectacular and very interesting to observe. They collect seeds and i noticed that there is always at least one worker guarding the entrance the the test tube. 

 

 

her majesty:

 

 

[Canadant]

Awesome!