19 replies to this topic

[CheetoLord02]

This is a colony I was not ever expecting to make a journal on, but they've totally blown my mind. Normally this genus gets tossed to the side without a second thought, and I nearly did the same. I caught this queen on September 1st, the same night where I caught my Neivamyrmex colony, and later that morning a huge Acromyrmex versicolor flight. You can see how it'd be easy to forget about a Dorymyrmex queen, so much so that the first picture I have of her is from October 29th, weeks after she got her first workers.
 

 

A few weeks later I moved them to an old Mini Hearth, as it was getting difficult to feed them in the test tube. They looked decent, but this Mini Hearth is my oldest THA formicarium, so it's not the most pristine ever.
 

 

 

Upon returning from Illinois I saw the Dorymyrmex were still thriving, so I elected to move them to a brand new Mini Hearth XL, as of January 6th. You can see the colony was doing well, but had a lot of growing room.
 

 

 

Well, as of today, the colony has totally exploded in numbers, which has been extremely surprising for such a short time. It really only took a bit of love and care and they've been absolutely thriving.
 

 

 

You can see here they have a ton of eggs, and another large pile of freshly-hatched larvae. I'm so excited to see this colony continue to grow, as I don't think I've ever seen a large captive Dorymyrmex colony before. I really just want to prove that this genus is not as bad as their reputation suggests, and with a bit of love they have the potential to be a ton of fun.
 

 

 

Edited by CheetoLord02, August 29 2021 - 2:55 PM.

[NickAnter]

I wish I could find bicolor... Just insanus here it seems....

[antsandmore]

ender ants has bicolor, maybe you can ask him where he caught them.

[Manitobant]

I wish I could find bicolor... Just insanus here it seems....

I’ve seen them in Palm Springs if you are looking for a place to find them. They only really exist in desert habitats.

[CheetoLord02]

Update 2/7

This colony's done nothing but continue to develop crazy fast, and I want to get another update in before I end up upgrading their formicarium. Next in line is a Fortress III.

You can see their pile of pupae is massive, at least be over 100 pupae. They've also gotten up to a few hundred workers now, probably 200-300 or so, and that growth isn't stopping anytime soon.
 

 

 

They've also got a ton of younger brood. The newest batch of eggs is starting to hatch, which is going to be crazy. The egg batch was larger than the queen, and she didn't even get slightly physogastric, so I'm expecting this colony to be able to get some pretty substantial numbers in the long run.
 

I'm expecting to end up moving them to the Fortress within a few weeks, and I'll be sure to update once I end up doing that.

[CheetoLord02]

Update 2/17

As of a few days ago I ended up moving this colony to their Fortress. They look really good in it, and definitely seem to be doing well, as the queen just can't seem to stop laying eggs! Almost every time I look in there she's laying, and you can tell from the huge piles of eggs they've got going on.
 

As of now they use 4 of the 6 chambers, which is perfect since it gives them plenty of growing room without worrying about the nest being too big. Although I have a feeling it won't last too long at the rate they're growing.
 

I also snapped a quick video of them the day that I moved them, which you can check out here!

[ANTdrew]

Awesome! How did you move a crazy colony like that??

[Kaelwizard]

 Wow.

Edited by Kaelwizard, February 17 2021 - 11:34 AM.

[antsandmore]

wait this is one queen correct?

[Antkeeper01]

Dorymyrmex are cool

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[CheetoLord02]

Awesome! How did you move a crazy colony like that??

Basically just attached a tube from the mini hearth to the fortress and used light and airflow to make the old nest unfavorable, and heat and darkness to make the new nest favorable. Then once all the brood and queen had moved I picked out the stragglers with an aspirator. It didn't taste very good. I did also have a few workers get out when I first attached the tubing, but it wasn't the end of the world.

 

wait this is one queen correct?

Yes, they're monogynous.

[CheetoLord02]

We're gonna need a bigger nest.

Only a month-ish later and the Fortress is bursting at the seams. I bet by the end of the month they'll have to start nesting in the outworld or something.
 

 

 

Their feeding responses also haven't slowed at all. Just look at this!
 

[ANTdrew]

The Fortress doesn’t really have much more space than a mini-hearth to be honest.

[Lillyrose]

Wow .. they're growing fast

[CheetoLord02]

Since last update I moved them into a Nucleus III. Here's a video briefly showing how that went:




Despite the looks it was actually relatively painless, and to my relief the ants really love the new nest.

 

 

 

Even with me having this colony on the backburner recently, their growth doesn't seem to have slowed in the slightest. I'm really excited, albeit a bit worried, for when they eventually outgrow even this nest.

[Canadant]

So cool. Loved the video if the move. So do you cover the nucleus glass pane?

[Antkeeper01]

update?

Edited by Antkeeper01, July 21 2021 - 9:12 AM.

[NicholasP]

I think he might have stopped updating for a while this journal for suspense or something.

[CheetoLord02]

We're back!

Ever since I moved this colony into the Nucleus, I just kinda stopped caring about them. The way I had the nest positioned on my shelf made it essentially impossible to view the ants, and they started making a huge mess of their outworld and climbing over the barrier. I eventually just got sick of it and reduced their feeding a lot, and sort of just forgot about them.

Well a few days ago I got a new order of Formisquarium XL containers and decided to make one for my Dorymyrmex bicolor, since I really do enjoy keeping them, at least when I can actually see them. I moved them out of the Nucleus and within a day or so they had fully moved into the new nest.
 

 

 

I feel like the colony has definitely shrunk in size a bit, but they have a lot more brood than I expected still. I probably still won't end up growing them at crazy speeds like before, as I'd like this nest to last at least more than 2 weeks.

 

 

[Antkeeper01]

thank you for finally updating this journal!!