7 replies to this topic

[Aaron567]

Camponotus sexguttatus

 

Camponotus sexguttatus is a widespread tropical species native from Argentina to the Caribbean islands. It was introduced to southeastern Florida in the late 20th century and has been spreading quickly, now covering about a third of the state. Their species name sexguttatus means "six spots" because in some populations they have three pairs of spots on the side of the gaster. In Florida however, most specimens have only two or four spots. I had a journal of this species previously, but it was a dual journal with my colony of Camponotus inaequalis and there was only one queen. I have deleted the C. sexguttatus posts on that journal and converted it to a journal on just the inaequalis because I felt that it was confusing the way it was. I figured I'd start over new with C. sexguttatus because it's been a while since I've kept them and I've wanted a polygynous Camponotus colony for a while.

 

June 30, 2021

 

On this day I received a group of Camponotus sexguttatus queens from a friend who lives on the east coast of Florida because I do not have this species in my part of the state. There were 6 queens but one of them died or got killed during shipping. At this point they only had eggs.

 

 

July 16, 2021

 

Today there is a nicely sized brood pile. Three pupae and more on the way. 

 

Edited by Aaron567, December 18 2021 - 10:14 AM.

[ANTS_KL]

They look so cute! Looks a bit like C. albosparus ngl

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[futurebird]

The way they are laying is why I call Camponotus "puppy ants"

[Bobby_Hill]

Awesome!

[Aaron567]

August 5, 2021

 

This colony has 8 workers, 11 pupae, several large/medium larvae, and around 30 eggs & small larvae.

 

[CheetoLord02]

Do these stay polygynous or will they cull queens? I'm really curious about Camponotus polygyny, and I'm experimenting with polygynous colonies of a few of our western species to see if it works.

[Aaron567]

Do these stay polygynous or will they cull queens? I'm really curious about Camponotus polygyny, and I'm experimenting with polygynous colonies of a few of our western species to see if it works.

 

I actually can't seem to find any sources that discuss polygyny in C. sexguttatus so I guess we'll just have to wait and see what this colony does. A couple years ago I saw a Dominican antkeeper on Instagram who had a decently sized polygyne colony of them so I've always assumed the species was polygynous.

[Aaron567]

December 18, 2021

 

The polygyny in this particular colony has not gone very smoothly. Since the last update (4+ months ago) there has been a lot of infighting and aggressiveness between the members of the colony. I'm not sure if queens are fighting each other or if the workers are attacking the queens, but one queen has died and all four living queens have lost limbs and/or antennae to some degree. Most of the time, some of the queens have been "shunned": forced to stay in the outworld and not allowed entry into the test tube. The shunned queens have stayed alive the entire time, apparently due to sympathetic workers (possibly their own biological workers) feeding them. For a brief period of time, there was only one queen in the nest and the rest were in the outworld. At present, there are two queens in the nest getting along peacefully. A few months ago, not long after the last update, aggressiveness between workers hit a peak, and there were at least 15-20 workers killed. I presume that it was the biological workers of the different queens that were fighting each other.

 

There are now between 80 and 100 workers total (~10 of which are majors), with four queens technically alive. I'm not sure that the shunned queens in the outworld are actually producing anything. This colony is probably small for its age, influenced by multiple factors including civil war and limited feedings. But, they are certainly growing and doing fine.