41 replies to this topic

[LowQualityAnts]

What ants have you had a bad experiences with while keeping or anting?

[United-Ants]

Teteramorum immigrans and camponotus chromaiodes
T immigrans escaping and riadeing my other colonys
C chromaides they came with 40 workers
And now are down to 4 workers

[LowQualityAnts]

My Camponotus americanus queen decided to lay her second batch of eggs right before hibernation and then ate them all delaying my colonies growth by half a year. Brachyponera chinensis patrol all of my yard and attack any week colonies they see.

Edited by LowQualityAnts, October 16 2022 - 9:02 AM.

[ANTdrew]

Brachyponera chinensis are on their way to ruining ant diversity in my area.

Edited by ANTdrew, October 16 2022 - 9:12 AM.

[LowQualityAnts]

It used to be brachyponera chinensis versus solenopsis invicta in my area until my local golf course covered most of where they lived in mulch and sprayed pesticides. Now i see asian needle ants everywhere

[T.C.]

A major benefit of me living so far north, is we don't have much for harmful or invasive species.

[Jonathan5608]

The only invasives I see are n flavipes and t immagrims

[OiledOlives]

Personally, I don't like keeping:
Solenopsis molesta - small, destructive
Monomorium minimum - small, able to get out of every setup I've ever used except for a moat
Crematogaster cerasi - annoying to contain, not a big fan of the genus in general
Crematogaster lineolata - annoying to contain, not a big fan of the genus in general

Temnothorax curvispinosus - small, slow, not fun to grow

Strumigenys cf rostrata - small, slow, slow growing, specialist, die easily

Camponotus castaneus - slow growing, ridiculously boring

Camponotus nearcticus - annoying to tube feed

Hypoponera opacior - needs substrate for larvae to spin, high humidity requirements
Ponera pennsylvanica - needs substrate for larvae to spin, high humidity requirements

Camponotus subbarbatus - slow growing, unbelievably boring except in huge colonies
Formica pallidefulva - extremely sensitive, difficult to tube feed

Nylanderia vividula - slow growth

Prenolepis imparis - inactive for half of the year, high failure rate

[ANTdrew]

Nylanderia vividula are NOT slow growing. 

[NicholasP]

Personally, I don't like keeping:
Solenopsis molesta - small, destructive
Monomorium minimum - small, able to get out of every setup I've ever used except for a moat
Crematogaster cerasi - annoying to contain, not a big fan of the genus in general
Crematogaster lineolata - annoying to contain, not a big fan of the genus in general

Temnothorax curvispinosus - small, slow, not fun to grow

Strumigenys cf rostrata - small, slow, slow growing, specialist, die easily

Camponotus castaneus - slow growing, ridiculously boring

Camponotus nearcticus - annoying to tube feed

Hypoponera opacior - needs substrate for larvae to spin, high humidity requirements
Ponera pennsylvanica - needs substrate for larvae to spin, high humidity requirements

Camponotus subbarbatus - slow growing, unbelievably boring except in huge colonies
Formica pallidefulva - extremely sensitive, difficult to tube feed

Nylanderia vividula - slow growth

Prenolepis imparis - inactive for half of the year, high failure rate

Ex kuse moi. Solenopsis molesta are awesome ants and not destructive.

[Serafine]

Solenopsis fugax (yellow thief ants).

- they are ridiculously tiny (1-3mm, nanitics come in at .8mm)

- they are almost impossible to contain with normal setups (i hade mine in a freezer box, that kinda worked as they are unmotivated/bad climbers)

- they bury EVERYTHING which leads to feeders leaking and food rotting (yes, the 2mm ants burried an entire sugar feeder until only the top was left sticking out)

- they LOVE to dig into tube water tanks and nuke themselves by flodding the tube

- the queens' wing are like glue paper and stick to every remotely moist surface (if you catch your queen with wings you will have to remove them, otherwise she gets stuck to the cotton or the glass or whatever surface they touch and die)

- failure rate seems to be about 50%

- despite being highly polygynous having queens found together is always a gamble and goes bad more often than it doesn't (all of the queens i tried to combine immediately tried to kill each other and they were REALLY GOOD at it - so good that even separating them quickly often resulted in one of them dying anyway)

Edited by Serafine, October 17 2022 - 5:00 AM.

[OiledOlives]

 

Personally, I don't like keeping:
Solenopsis molesta - small, destructive

Ex kuse moi. Solenopsis molesta are awesome ants and not destructive.

 

Ever try keeping them in... well, any nest at all?

[ZTYguy]

Linepethma humile, they are so destructive to our ecosystems and extremely hard to contain.

[Hothkinstroy]

Solenopsis Invicta and Geminata: They are escape artists and grow too fast unless if you have $1000 you want to burn. Also them escaping and killing your other colonies

Monomorium Minimum: Hard to contain, even worse to keep then Geminata or Invicta. They can't take down most insects and they easily die, Boring and relatively difficult to keep. If you like big numbers keep Pheidole or Tetramorium. Not Monomorium Minimum

[bmb1bee]

Monomorium ergatogyna: Basically M. minimum, but more abundant in California. They're escape artists and have gotten out of almost every formicarium I've put them in (except for a sealed one with zero openings at all for them to escape out of, which I ended up neglecting). On the plus side, they're easy to find (they don't fly, but I dig up small portions of wild colonies), are extremely polygynous, and are inbreeders, so it's pretty easy to get a big colony out of a few queens and workers in no time.

 

Tetramorium immigrans: Fun at first because they grow insanely fast, but get way too hard to deal with over time. They get past barriers easily and empty feeders faster than you'd ever believe. Despite that, I'll have another go at them next year...

 

Prenolepis imparis: They grow insanely slowly, have a rather high mortality rate, and diapause in the summer. They're actually not that bad in my opinion, since you can just leave them alone for half the year (in the founding stage at least) and focus on your other ants, then while your other ants are in hibernation you'll have some time for them.

 

Tapinoma sessile: So annoying because they never move the way you want them to. I tried to move a queen and a few workers from the deli cup I caught them with into a test tube, but they refused to nest in the tube. Instead, they seemed to be more interested in just putting all their brood and chilling at the bottom of the cup. I had to dump them into the tube in the end.

 

Linepithema humile: We all know why lmao.

[ANTdrew]

I don’t support all this Monomorium hate. Just sayin’.

[bmb1bee]

I don’t support all this Monomorium hate. Just sayin’.

I wish there were minimum in my area, they'd probably be more fun to keep than ergatogyna. Founding them from a single queen is something you can do with minimum that you can't do with ergatogyna I guess....

[ColAnt735]

To be honest in my opinion no ant I have kept so far merits being my least favourite. They all have their pros and cons.

Edited by ColAnt735, October 24 2022 - 7:54 PM.

[bmb1bee]

To be honest in my opinion no ant I have kept so far merits being my least favourite. They all have their pros and cons.

Kudos for the interesting response. Any species you think have more cons than pros? 

Edited by bmb1bee, October 24 2022 - 8:10 PM.