On May 1st while digging up a Pogonomyrmex huachucanus colony in Payson Arizona, I found a very surprising little crematogaster missourensis queen. We found tons of Crematogaster colonies in the area but had never seen a colony of this species,so finding a queen was quite unexpected.
After a few moments of freaking out that we had found an orthocrema Crematogaster, we put her in a tube with a piece of wet cotton to keep her hydrated.
After getting back home, I put her in a test tube setup and put her next to the heat mat. I assumed I had uncovered her in a founding chamber so I fed her some honey and fruit flies to fatten her up again and kickstart egg production.
Fast forward to today and she’s eaten a bunch of fruit flies and has laid a decent batch of eggs. One thing that worries me though is what appears to be fungus growing on her back. I’m not sure how it got there but fungus growing on an ant can’t be a good thing.
I’m hoping this ends up just going away but to be safe I introduced a callow worker from my lineolata colony in hopes that the worker will clean the queen end up cleaning the fungus too. If this doesn’t work I’ll probably have to resort to a quick vinegar bath which should get rid of the fungus. I’ve done this to introduce workers to other colonies but never to a queen so I’m hoping it won’t be necessary. I’ve got my finger crossed.
Checking up on them today (May 20th) and the queen has since accepted the worker and helped it eclose.
Edited by SirDuckington, May 20 2021 - 9:55 PM.
