15 replies to this topic

[Leptomyrmx]

So, I've seen some tutorials on collecting wild colonies, but what do you all think about it? Since removing colonies from the wild can effect the ecosystem, but there's nuptial flights so most likely there's other colonies of the same species nearby? I just thought of it when I found this super tempting Camponotus lownei colony under a rock. I've actually only heard about digging up Myrmecia colonies, is that something to do with the fact that they don't fly very far or something?

[futurebird]

I think it matters what kind of colony and where it is located. In some cases a landscaper or gardener is insisting on removing ants, so why not collect them? Likewise if it's an invasive or very common pest sp. it's less of a big deal IMO. Your cousin has ants in his AC? why not collect the pupae if they could be useful?

 

But going into a nature preserve or park and collecting whole colonies seems like digging up trees or poaching.

 

It's worth noting that wild caught colonies don't tend to do well from what I've read after being caught... 

[SYUTEO]

Digging up wild colonies are usually not the best way of obtaining a colony because it can be dangerous especially if it's a stinging species, you might also not find or accidentally kill the queen. 

 

The reason why you only heard about digging up Myrmecia colonies is probably because people wanted to destroy the colony since they're stings are painful and can be lethal to humans. Another reason why is because they're unique ants and since finding a queen is hard and raising one is also hard, people wanted to dig up their nests to collect them so they can get an easy colony. The queens of some species are very hard to tell apart from workers (even harder than most other Myrmecia) such as Myrmecia simillima which has brachypterous queens (queens with short, under developed wings that are not capable of flying) and often have a much smaller thorax than other Myrmecia queens and sometimes it's even identical to workers.

[GreekAnts]

The only "wild" colony I have collected is a lasius one I collected from a pot in my balcony, it was really hard to collect them and in the process is pretty easy to damage the colony or accidentally ending up killing the workers or even the queen, while I was collecting them I made some mistakes and lost a lot of workers, I kept them for like 2 weeks in captivity, they stopped eating and their only purpose was to escape, they could cross any barrier I had and the only thing that stopped them was the lid, but when I opened it they all immediately rush out, even the queen herself!!!!  While I kept them the queen made a pile of eggs but things was not good and I could see it, I ended up letting them go outside,I ended up just ruining their lives for nothing, its not worth it at all, so I told my self this is the last time. The best option is to catch yourself a queen.

[ANTdrew]

I am staunchly opposed to the practice of digging up colonies. It is harmful to local ant populations and totally unnecessary given how easy it is to find new queens. Removing established colonies of any size is like removing the all-stars from the population. Such colonies also tend to adjust poorly to the sudden switch to captive conditions. A tour through the archives on this forum will show you how well captured colonies fare. Just don’t do it.

[Manitobant]

I think its completely fine. I've collected tons of wild colonies and it has done nothing to the local ant population. Ants are very resilient creatures, and taking a few colonies from the wild shouldn't harm the population much.

[DDD101DDD]

I think its completely fine. I've collected tons of wild colonies and it has done nothing to the local ant population. Ants are very resilient creatures, and taking a few colonies from the wild shouldn't harm the population much.

I feel like in places with higher concentrations of antkeepers this could become a problem if everyone starts digging up colonies.

[TacticalHandleGaming]

Big no for me. Leave wild colonies alone. You could be dramatically impacting your local ecosystem, not to mention the risk of killing the queen, etc.  Plus you miss all the fun of catching a queen, and raising your colony past the founding stage. 

[TennesseeAnts]

I am staunchly opposed to the practice of digging up colonies. It is harmful to local ant populations and totally unnecessary given how easy it is to find new queens. Removing established colonies of any size is like removing the all-stars from the population. Such colonies also tend to adjust poorly to the sudden switch to captive conditions. A tour through the archives on this forum will show you how well captured colonies fare. Just don’t do it.

The only wild-caught colony I've had that's done poorly was that C. americanus colony I dug up earlier this year. I have no clue how old the queen was though, and she looked fairly thin upon collection so I have no clue what happened with her. 

As long as you're not collecting dozens of colonies of the same species in the same area its not a big deal. The number one predator of new queens and young colonies is competition from mature colonies of the same/similar species. If you removed all the mature colonies from an area of a given species, you'd see the younger colonies start to flourish and those would take their place. A certain stretch of woods or prairie can only sustain so many mature colonies. It's just how it works. 

[Chickalo]

IN MY OPINION, it depends on quite a few bits.  Disclaimer so half of the forums doesn't f*** me up, this is all my opinion, feel free to disagree.  Not saying you should follow this, not very smart to follow someone with less than 10 IQ's motives.  First of all, experience level.  This bit is important because if you're new you can't tell the difference between a rare and common species (I've seen people misidentify Lasius claviger for Tetramorium immigrans).  It's much better for beginners to raise from queens.  Kind of like how you learn how to add and subtract before getting a calculator, or learning how to write on paper before typing.

 

After experience it's rarity/other stuff.  Let's say you're an intermediate+, like most people on the forums/discord.  You know how to Identify at least to genus, usually to specific species/groups.  You have one or more successful colonies and now understand that formicidae and myrmicinae aren't the same.  You know probably know what species are rare and often sought after (Pheidole rhea, Camponotus castaneus), and others that are thrown away at sight (Solenopsis invicta, Lasius claviger).  Honestly, it's probably fine to dig up a colony here as long as you know what you're doing.  If you find a pilifera colony you probably should check that the surrounding area has a good population of it so you don't accidentally push the self destruct button on the pilifera population.  However if you find a rubra colony and you've seen rubra just about...  everywhere, might as well pick it up if it's a colony you want.

 

WITH THAT SAID, don't go collecting colonies "because you can".  Make sure you have the supplies to keep them, have the knowledge, etc.  I usually don't go out with the intention to find colonies, only queens.  Also don't over catch, what I do is usually okay, but again I'm very idiotic so, if I find them and to the extent of my knowledge their common, sure I'll pick them up since I plenty resources at home.  Now I'm realizing how long this is dragging, so I'll shut u-

Edited by Chickalo, September 17 2021 - 7:41 AM.

[TestSubjectOne]

I think its completely fine. I've collected tons of wild colonies and it has done nothing to the local ant population. Ants are very resilient creatures, and taking a few colonies from the wild shouldn't harm the population much.

You could say the same thing about removing large amounts of any plant or animal from the ecosystem. Based off of your reasoning, it is OK to collect or kill wild elephants, giraffes, lions because one person will not be able to make a visible impact on their populations. For much of human history people believed that the populations of wild animals were so vast that hunting couldn't damage them which lead to us driving too many species to name extinct. We live in the 21st century now, and there is amble evidence that being unable to see the harm you are causing to something as vast as an animal population doesn't mean that there is no harm.

[Manitobant]

I think its completely fine. I've collected tons of wild colonies and it has done nothing to the local ant population. Ants are very resilient creatures, and taking a few colonies from the wild shouldn't harm the population much.

You could say the same thing about removing large amounts of any plant or animal from the ecosystem. Based off of your reasoning, it is OK to collect or kill wild elephants, giraffes, lions because one person will not be able to make a visible impact on their populations. For much of human history people believed that the populations of wild animals were so vast that hunting couldn't damage them which lead to us driving too many species to name extinct. We live in the 21st century now, and there is amble evidence that being unable to see the harm you are causing to something as vast as an animal population doesn't mean that there is no harm.

insects are different than most other animals though. Most insects are extremely abundant, very adaptable and reproduce like crazy. Because of this, insect populations are able to easily and quickly recover from situations that would wipe out most other animals. For example, most mature colonies of ants produce hundreds to thousands of queen alates, a good amount of which will successfully found a colony. And when you factor in the fact that there are often lots of mature colonies in an area, it means that taking one or two colonies shouldn't do that much damage.

[TestSubjectOne]

 

insects are different than most other animals though. Most insects are extremely abundant, very adaptable and reproduce like crazy. Because of this, insect populations are able to easily and quickly recover from situations that would wipe out most other animals.

And ants are different from most insects. A mature colony takes years to grow and takes up a role in the ecosystem comparable to anything from a regular insect to a cow depending on its size and species. Comparing an ant colony with a single insect is to compare a single ant with the cells that make it up. Sure, the cells can reproduce within hours but that does not mean that ants composed of them can multiply in the same way.

 

 

For example, most mature colonies of ants produce hundreds to thousands of queen alates, a good amount of which will successfully found a colony.
 

There are many other animals that produce massive amounts of tiny offspring, such as the ocean sunfish - the largest bony fish in the world - which starts life as a microscopic plankton. Females of this species are known to lay 300,000,000 eggs at a time. Nevertheless, they are still a vulnerable species due to overfishing, and as a result consumption of them is banned in the E.U. Just because there are lots of young ant colonies or young sunfish does not mean that the adults are common or easily replaceable.

 

And when you factor in the fact that there are often lots of mature colonies in an area, it means that taking one or two colonies shouldn't do that much damage.

 

An individual taking colonies from the wild - whether "a few" or "tons" as you said in your previous post - will not have a large impact on the overall population because one person is insignificant compared to the size of an ecosystem. Nevertheless, if there were many antkeepers in your area with the same attitude I don't doubt that you would see a significant loss of ant biodiversity and likely harm to the ecosystem as a whole. Your attitude is irresponsible and shouldn't be allowed to perpetuate in our growing hobby. This is not to mention that while there are many mature colonies in the environment, keepers are naturally drawn to species that are interesting and therefore more rare. When you harvest a rare colony from an area it won't just be replaced by another identical colony. The niche that it occupied may be taken by the more common species surrounding it or even an invasive and it will grow rarer.
 

[CheetoLord02]

If I flip a rock and I see a queen hanging out right there on top, at least if it's a species I want, I'm going to collect them. Particularly if the species is especially abundant in the area. A lot of Arizona's species tend to have local abundance, due to our extreme variations in environments across different elevations and latitudes, you'll often find one random area that's completely packed to near carrying-capacity with one species, and then barely find that species anywhere else outside of that area. Two of the main colonies that I have wild collected were my Pogonomyrmex huachucanus and Pheidole obtusospinosa, and this is true for both of them. That said, I also don't particularly feel opposed to collecting colonies of rare species, because more often than not with ants, "rare" really just means "rarely encountered" or "rarely collected". 

The one exception I have to this is that I won't collect mature colonies. If a colony is producing alates, or at the size where they will be, I will not collect them. I have found many queens of large colonies under rocks that I did not collect. Small colonies are easy to replace, when you remove one, the likelihood that a new queen from that season's flights will establish in their place is much higher. However, when you remove a colony that will be contributing to alate production in an area, then you start to run into problems.

[Leptomyrmx]

Very interesting seeing all your opinions! I don't think I'll collect any colonies anyway, too many bites and stuff, and everyone had some very good reasons!

[Leptomyrmx]

IN MY OPINION, it depends on quite a few bits.  Disclaimer so half of the forums doesn't f*** me up, this is all my opinion, feel free to disagree.  Not saying you should follow this, not very smart to follow someone with less than 10 IQ's motives.  First of all, experience level.  This bit is important because if you're new you can't tell the difference between a rare and common species (I've seen people misidentify Lasius claviger for Tetramorium immigrans).  It's much better for beginners to raise from queens.  Kind of like how you learn how to add and subtract before getting a calculator, or learning how to write on paper before typing.

 

After experience it's rarity/other stuff.  Let's say you're an intermediate+, like most people on the forums/discord.  You know how to Identify at least to genus, usually to specific species/groups.  You have one or more successful colonies and now understand that formicidae and myrmicinae aren't the same.  You know probably know what species are rare and often sought after (Pheidole rhea, Camponotus castaneus), and others that are thrown away at sight (Solenopsis invicta, Lasius claviger).  Honestly, it's probably fine to dig up a colony here as long as you know what you're doing.  If you find a pilifera colony you probably should check that the surrounding area has a good population of it so you don't accidentally push the self destruct button on the pilifera population.  However if you find a rubra colony and you've seen rubra just about...  everywhere, might as well pick it up if it's a colony you want.

 

WITH THAT SAID, don't go collecting colonies "because you can".  Make sure you have the supplies to keep them, have the knowledge, etc.  I usually don't go out with the intention to find colonies, only queens.  Also don't over catch, what I do is usually okay, but again I'm very idiotic so, if I find them and to the extent of my knowledge their common, sure I'll pick them up since I plenty resources at home.  Now I'm realizing how long this is dragging, so I'll shut u-

Yeah by the way I was just asking for opinions, I probably wasn't gonna dig any up anyway
And that was pretty convincing lol