8 replies to this topic

[Formiga]

Hi all! It's my 1st post here.

 

I need help identifying this species. Last mid May I caught 9 queens. Meanwhile 2 have died, 2 have successfully bred their 1st nanitics and 5 of them still haven't.

 

The 1st nanitics were born one month ago, so around 9 weeks from capture to 1st nanitics.

After some mistakes with the 1st colony the 2nd one went smooth and both seem to be able to make it, one has 4 nanitics (with 1 being of a 2nd generation) and the other one has 6.

 

This is being my 1st experience with ants. I've read some things but I'm still a noob, watching them too often, overcaring for them and making noob mistakes. Learning a lot and now I'm feeling minimally confident in taking care of them and actually start enjoying them.

 

I live 50Km North of Lisbon, Portugal, Europe.

Their natural habitat is on the dunes of the cliffs by the seaside. Their natural nests are small holes on the hard floor of the waking paths surrounded by short vegetation, looking like semi-deserted, among the sand dunes.

 

These ants seem to be blind to red light. I've placed a red acetate sheet on their nests and they don't react to external stimuli, not even when I hit them with my phone's flashlight to watch them better.

 

I see long trails of these ants bringing what seems to be pieces of vegetation to their nest. I believe they are seed harvesters.

 

These ants are big and the majors are enourmous with huge heads!

 

Color: all black. The queen have 2 'golden' stripes on their gaster, as seen in one of the attached photos.

 

Size: around 8 or 9 mm.

 

Big gaster, full clostral. They love honey! (one of them is sipping on a thick drop of it next to me for over one hour!)

She does not have any 'spikes' on her waist.

 

I've been feeding the queens still on syringes with honey, and the 2 colonies with honey, fruit flies and mosquitoes that try to bite me

I've smashed 2 kinds of seeds for human consumption I have here at home but they do not seem very interested in them so far, they seem to be preferring dead bugs (they might have larvae to feed).

 

One of the colonies moved this morning from their syringe into a tiny 8 or 10 mm wide rubber tube attached to a syringe with water, on a sand out world (brought from their natural habitat and sterilized). The other syringe was almost dry and the morning sun directly hit them, causing them to move. They are not under direct sunlight anymore. This colony had 1 nanitic moving little pebbles of sand all day long to almost completely block their entrance, along with some scraps of local dry flowers I've got them to see if they would eat them but instead they've used it for architecture. :] That's a remarkable work for such a tiny ~1mm worker!

 

Please find attached some photos of these queens.

 

 

Any questions you have please just ask!

 

Since the 2 colonies are moving forward this seems to be for real, so it's time to know what I actually got here and cater to their specific needs.

 

Thanks everyone for any ID on them.

 

(Edited to correct the year of the topic title)

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Edited by Formiga, September 16 2021 - 6:56 AM.

[NickAnter]

Fusca group Formica.

[Formiga]

Hi NickAnter, and thanks for replying so quickly!

 

It could very well be a Formica Fusca, yes, for what I've googled around. They are endemic to Portugal.

 

Since in their natural habitats I see long trailers of them bringing what seems to be seeds and similar and then get them into their nest and after some time they start getting out with seeds and dry flowers left overs piling them near the entrance; so I was aiming at some kind of Messor. But there again, I know nothing about ants identification. And for what I've read on the Formica Fusca Care Sheet (thanks dudes for this!) it doesn't seem to eat seeds.

 

So I'm still a bit confuse about it. But now I have more info about them and see how things go from now.

 

Thank you very much again!

 

 

... and if anyone has some other opinion, just shoot it.

[NickAnter]

Well this might not be F. fusca specifically. It is in that species group, of which there are many in Portugal. fusca is native to a lot of Eurasia, so not endemic, but certainly native.

 

I'm no expert on the behavior of European Formica, so there very well  could be a granivorous Formica in the fusca group native to Portugal.

[ANTdrew]

I think what you are observing is their thatching behavior for nest building.

[Formiga]

There very well  could be a granivorous Formica in the fusca group native to Portugal.

Good point. An ocean and millions of years away and who knows what Evolution can play with. Nature abhors a vacuum and with so many resources around easily, sooner or later (in the million of years scale) some species go MMmmmmm... I wonder what I can do with that...

 

And thanks for the word granivorous. One more to add to my lexicon. Slowly building up!

 

 

 

I think what you are observing is their thatching behavior for nest building.

 

Hi ANTdrew, and thanks for chiming in!

 

What use could they have for that much amount of vegetation inside their nest?

It would make sense for ant bread making, but these end up not seeming to be Messor.
Ants don't have comfy beds  so what could they be using this for? Helping pupae in spinning their cocoons? They have a lot of sand around and at easier reach.

 

 

By the way, easy morning start for them. Everything seems to be under control so I finally can let them go on with their lives with just minimal occasional interference. Arrived, checked on them, they seem fine, and moved on happy and confident.

 

I'm just a noob in the learning, so allow me these questions. I have huge lots of them, I'm very curious and sometimes hard questions (is what some people say) pop out of my head. I wish I were introduced to ant keeping when I was a kid, I would have loved it!!

[Kaelwizard]

They use the vegetation to give structure to their nests if I am not mistaken.

[Formiga]

Honestly I have no idea of what they can use the vegetation for.

 

Today I went for a walk on the place I caught the queens to take a look at the local colonies.

Huge numbers of entrance holes. It was late in the afternoon with still some sun shining, and most ant colonies were in (working inside probably after some outside raid). Some colony entrance holes were covered with soil, sand, little pebbles or tiny bits of vegetation.

 

Some colonies were raiding outside. I saw one ant carrying a whole little flower, and I saw some carrying large seeds (photo below). And it got me wondering: what use could they have for those huge heavy seeds? It's hard to carry them, so they must have some important use for it or they would probably give priority to something more important and lighter than those seeds. I've looked around and could not find such seeds (I don't think I've even seen them before), they were from far or very well hidden below all the soil and low but somewhat dense vegetation.

 

I've stolen 3 of those seeds from them   for research purposes .

I'll smash them and offer them to my ants to see if they take it.

But not today, since I tried to get my flying bugs UV zapper next to my compost box and light it up to see if I could fry and catch a lot of insects for meals. And bingo, quick and easy! Their altars of sacrifice are filled up with all you can eat nom nom.   

 

 

Another photo I took to share with you guys is from a pile of vegetation leftovers nearby the entrance whole. And this is not the bigger one I've seen, not by a long shot. So this means a lot of vegetation was carried around and brought inside for some kind of useful processing, and these leftovers were discarded outside.

 

So I keep on asking myself what use could they have for all that vegetation. Food? Structure, like @Kaelwizard mentioned? Dunno, dunno...

 

 

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[Kaelwizard]

Some North American Formica that I have observed construct hills out of sand and use pieces of wood and dead plants to help give it structure and shape the entrances. I’m guessing the seeds are used as a food source.