Bonjour !
To start off, i didn't dig in any forum for years now. I am native to german parents and born in france, i hope i can there for explain my English grammar difficulties.
Since child i always sat, walked, crawled, dug and explore my garden and any garden forest that couldn't hold me back. Insects where my main interest and keeping a young Myrmica Rubra colony while at school gave me my all best mark in biology (thanks to a teacher who just wanted my curiosity to thrieve). I couldn't keep any pets due to allergys, so i got instantly captivated by the behavior of our little friends. I started Catching colonys in jars sadly killing most of them, but then learning by mistake and kept a Myrmica Rubra colony that i caught in the wild (thanks to them feeling safe enougth to keep queens over ground).
My largest kept colony was a messor barbarus i had in an old formicarium from antstore, the same shop i had a work experience caring for multiple species. After keeping european ants i discovered all the varieties we have in the world, i was aware that a tropical animal wouldn't survive in my region and didn't give it more thoughts. After keeping my messor barbarus for 3 years they died during my vacation, part of why i don't trust in anyone but me tending to my ants. More and more living with the care and observation of the few lasius niger, lasius flavus, lasius emraginatus and myrmica i just had one thing bothering me, having to put them in box away in the cellar for months. What else would i enjoy watching if no ants ?
Then i became aware of the biomes and that surely ants who live in parts of the world where there is no cold winter they would be active all year ? well not allways.. anyway that's what brought me into keeping Exotic species besides my "local" ants.
I try my best to give my ants a naturalistic setup, enviroment when possible. My favorite setups are natural substrate setups, as when i was a kid and kept ants in jars to see them dig.
To finish of that presentation of mine i would like to share with you for now only the names of species in actually keep.
Formica ; Sanguinea 1 st year foundation,
Formica : SP/Black (one i don't have the tools to identify correctly) in pleometrosis 2 x 3 Queens,
Formica : Rufa (a widely protected species, not in my locality) with Cinerea slaves, my local garden formica ,
Solenopsis Fugax : Young Queen,
Myrmecocystus Mexicanus : "Brown golden" Queen foundation,
Myrmecocystus Mexicanus : "Yellow ish" Queen with one boosted worker,
Myrmecocystus Placodops : young foundation having trouble (almost lost half the nanitics),
Camponotus Fedschenkoi : Young foundation i got with just the queen, now 20 workers strong and lots of brood,
Irdidomyrmex Purpureus : Young founfation i also got only with queen, now also 12 workers strong and growing really fast as they are known for,
Acromyrmex Octopinosus : My first leaf cutters, 1 year old colony growing slowly but always out for rose petals (they are quite picky on the folliage)
Atta Sexdens : Young foundation from this year with about 20 workers and growing fungie
Myrmecia Nigriscapa : My all favorite ant as for now, the behaviour, the handling (litteraly feeding her insects with forceps and hearing her mandibles snap onto the metal) sadly she just won't start laying eggs again... please help
Thanks for reading and offering all this precious informations on the forum, i might start a journal but i need to discuss it first
Merci beaucoup !
I am an Ant and I'm digging a hole, Diggy diggy hole, diggy diggy hole
Edited by Katla, November 4 2022 - 4:44 PM.
