I'm starting this journal to focus solely on my granivorous colonies. Here's the original journal. At the moment I have two Pogonomyrmex colonies, otherwise known as harvester ants, native to Utah: P. occidentalis and P. rugosus. The timelines of their growth can be found below. I will also be featuring a colony of Messor structor, or reaper ants, which I obtained in a trade from a local keeper.
Messor Structor - Reaper Ants
I got this colony a couple of weeks ago in an AC test tube portal with around 60 workers. I attached a small dirt box for them to use as they liked. Of course a few days later they quickly moved into it, and created several large chambers. Currently, the test tube portal is used as the only outworld, and the two water tubes which I left attached are being used as granaries. The colony also stores their famous ant bread in a drier portion of one of the tubes.
A couple quick notes on the species for those not familiar with Messor sp:
- The colony needs a high humidity zone around 90% humidity to store brood
- A drier zone around 40% humidity is used for seeds and ant bread
- Sometimes the ants will allow the seeds to germinate before consumption
- Workers are polymorphic, with the smallest workers being shorter then the heads of the largest workers
- Colonies (especially large ones) are very good at chewing through plastic and being destructive in general
- Max population size of a couple thousand in captivity
- Messor in general are photophobic, they hate any source of light.
- Messor have some difficulty climbing, similar to harvester ants in that regard
The colony before I got them:
Current setup:
Edited by UtahAnts, July 14 2024 - 11:17 AM.