6 replies to this topic

[Amatty76]

 

Anthony and I found this absolute beauty of a queen when we stopped at a prairie going north to comstock, only about 2 minutes earlier we were talking about how pretty formica prociliata queens are supposedly so we dug into a nest for fun and the queen just came running out. later we also found a queen of a mature colony but Anthony bring responsible put it back. We collected 400+ workers along with the queen of the first colony and she’s currently in a tubs and tubes setup with about 100 workers until I can get formisquariums.

 

 

As you can see her thorax is very hairy on the sides, front, and back which I assume is some sort of defense mechanism as they’re parasites, and about being parasites i’m thinking that their color could have something to do with them being supposed pallidefulva parasites.

 

 

Their workers are weirdly similar to obscuripes but their largest workers get larger and their smallest workers get smaller, there’s not really any specific color for each worker size but generally the smaller workers are darker and the largest workers are mostly red/reddish orange on the head and thorax.

 

 

Heres a picture of them in their current setup until I get back from our anting trip, also as far as I know I’m the first person to ever have a colony of formica prociliata.

 

(credits to Darth for taking macro pictures and Anthony for helping dig them up)

 

Edited by Amatty76, July 1 2023 - 12:08 PM.

[Virginian_ants]

They are beautiful!

[futurebird]

I've never seen an ant with a little fur coat like that. I wonder what those hairs are for?

[Amatty76]

I’ve got all the brood and workers fully moved into their nest now, which is a Formisquarium XL. I began to offer them some protein and sugars and they took both gladly, and actually started swarming their sugar water feeder but that’s normal for formica.

 

 Queen

 

Brood pile excluding the big pile of eggs

 

Smaller and larger worker eating a cricket 

[Amatty76]

The queen has been pumping out eggs and there’s been a few massive workers eclosed, but I still don’t think they have any max size workers as I’ve seen larger in the wild. Also no queen pics this time since I couldn’t get any good pictures of her.

 

bunch of brood and what not, there’s a bunch of eggs hidden under the condensation

 

2 of the smaller egg/larvae batches

 

polymorphism, i’ve seen a few workers that are at most 3.5mm

[antsriondel]

Love it!

[Amatty76]

Nothing much to update on but the queen laid a ton of eggs and they’ve become super active in the outworld.