7-28-2015
 
I dug up eleven of these queens from their founding chambers near Big Bear Lake, California on 7-26-2015. I've been wanting some of these for a long time. This unique species of Pogonomyrmex is only found in the pine forested mountains of Southern California, where there is snow on the ground most of the winter. I'm guessing these will probably even need to be hibernated.
 
For now, I put one of these in a small dirt box, and the rest are in test tubes. The one in the dirt box dug itself a nest pretty quick. The ones in the test tubes are still going crazy, so hopefully they will calm down soon.
 

 

 

Look at those menacing jaws!

There are Pogonomyrmex in the snow...I want them :c 

Yeah, up here is the dakotas, we have Pogonomyrmex cf. Occidentalis. We regularly get 6 months of winter/snow. They make mounds by collecting nearbypebbles and piling it into an anthill. Sometimes they will dig up very small fossils, perhaps to a small mammal, and lay them on the top.

Edited by Ants4fun, July 28 2015 - 7:33 PM.

Ant archaeologists. haha! Imagine if they dug up a fossil of an ant. o.O

Update 7-31-2015
 
These queens are going completely crazy in their test tubes, so I moved another one into a dirt box. I found out that Pogonomyrmex tenuispinus climbs right up smooth surfaces no problem, and can even climb upside down on smooth plastic. I had a worker get out and make its way into the first dirt box I setup for the P. montanus, and it ripped her to pieces. I since replace that queen with another one.

Next thing we need is wet loving Camponotus. 

Good luck with this species, it seems to be a bit tougher long term than other Pogonomyrmex.

Haha, by the looks of things so far, I don't think it's working out too well in the short term.

My one and only montanus finally settled after a week and dug herself a little burrow in the test tube/dirt setup.

I had a worker get out and make its way into the first dirt box I setup for the P. montanus, and it ripped her to pieces. 

I have no idea why, but reading this made me so depressed...

Update 9-17-2015
 
I ended up moving three of these to dirt boxes, and the rest to small test tube foraging containers. The queens have dug nests in the test tube containers so it's a little hard to see them, but I have seen a few with a couple larvae.

 

In one of the dirt boxes there's now what looks like three little nanitics.

Update 9-24-2015
 
The queen died in the colony with the three nanitics, so they're doomed. A few of the queens in the test tube foraging containers died too. One of the test tube containers has one little nanitic running around, but I can't spot the queen anywhere. Hopefully she's just hiding really well.

Wow these sound like bummer Pogonomyrmex! They look cool but Californicus have been difficult enough.

Update 10-2-2015
 
The way I setup the test tube containers for these ants just does not work well. They had enough dirt to dig nests, yet they are so fragile, the slightest bump can collapse them. I also can't see anything, so I have no idea whether they're dead or alive. I finally just dumped them all out. Turns out all but two queens were dead. One has one worker and a pupae, and the other had nothing. One of the dead queens left two workers behind, so I carefully introduced them to the lone queen. I put both of these colonies into some fresh new test tube setups. I plan to put these in dirt boxes as soon as I have some ready.

Update 10-15-2015
 
Both queens in test tubes have died before I ever got them in dirt boxes. I'm now left with just the one remaining colony in the dirt box. All I can see in this colony is the queen and one pupae.

Sorry to hear    Hope the lone queen do well for you.

Update 11-30-2015
 
After moving to a new apartment, while unpacking my ants, I found the queen dead. One of her pupae was just starting to eclose too. I just dropped the brood and eclosing worker in with my P. magnacanthus colony.

Update 11-16-2019
 
I never managed to find any of these queens this year, but luckily my friend Ken (Retroman) did what he does every year with P. tenuispinus; he managed to collect a bunch of male and female alates and bread them at home. He gave me two of the queens that he was sure are fertile. These mated some time around October 13th I think.

 

I didn't have much to put them in at the moment, so I put them both in large #4 Dirt Boxes.

 

 

 

They are designed for much smaller ants, so it's a pretty small space for digging tunnels, but at the very bottom there is plenty room for chambers. They both were put in with a few of their sister workers from their original colonies.

 

I haven't been able to see much of what's going on in their nests, but I can say for sure one of them has a few fairly large larvae and even possibly some pupae now, so it's looking like Ken was right about them being fertile, or at least one of them.

Update 12-7-2019
 
One of these I don't think is fertile because I can't seem to see much of any thing in the nest. As for the other one, I can see a few little callow workers running around in the nest now. Let's hope this one does better than the previous colonies.