259 replies to this topic

[kiedeerk]

Hello kiedeerk;

I enjoy your photos and journal. I'm wondering if these ants would accept something other than dried rose petals, like dried herbs. Would they use something like dried parsley, a gently flavoured herb? I don't keep these kinds of ants and I'm just curious. Thank you
RPT

Interesting thought. In the wild they mostly forage for flower petals but also leaves. Parsley and herbs tend to have strong smell and scent so I am not sure they will like. They are still picky about which flower they will use for the fungal garden. Their favorite by far are roses but once spring comes I will give them a variety of fresh flowers to choose from

[kiedeerk]

How did you get the acromyrmex versicolor? Sorry if you answered this question already. I'm also just shocked at the quality of those images. How?!

Acromyrmex versicolor are native to the southwest USA. I used my iPhone with a macro lens. The good thing about these ants are they don’t really freak out when I take the lid off so I can take the pictures without any hinderance

[kiedeerk]

Camponotus socius are in a diapause like state. Queen has stopped producing eggs and brood pile is slowly depleting. Maybe it’s their internal clock kicking in. They are still somewhat picky about protein so I m hoping winter will go away as many of my colonies are more fond of insect variety and not just fruit flies and meal worms. I really love their color pattern but especially the colors on the major workers.

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[kiedeerk]

Acromyrmex colonies are beginning to thrive again. Temperature seems to be crucial in the growth of the r fungus and thereby the ants. I notice fungal death occurring once temperature dropped below 60s. The queens also stopped egg production. I now have them in the 75-80 degree range and the queens restarted egg production and the fungal garden is thriving again even though only dried flowers were given. However the dried flowers would get rehydrated inside their nest as the humidity is pretty high. They should have their first set of pupae very soon as the larvae are growing very rapidly. I will have plenty of fungus to transfer back to my trachymyrmex colony once I decide to take them out of diapause in the coming weeks or months

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[MyrmecologyMaven]

Great quality photos! This is one of the best journals on the forum! I used to have an Acromyrmex versicolor colony as well and loved every second of keeping them (except for one nasty escape). I'm hoping to get my hands on a colony later this year.

[kiedeerk]

Colobopsis Papago growing steadily. They have 18 or so workers. No majors yet. I feel I need to start planning for a new nest in the next few months. Their water supply is also running out. Good thing is that this species lives in very dry conditions and require minimal water.

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[kiedeerk]

This journal is about to get more content as I have taken out all the natives out of my garage into my ant room. all the natives have survived in the freezing temperatures for almost 3 months. At times temperatures were well below freezing as low as 10F. This just tells you that for these temperate species they can withstand a very harsh climate without losing many workers in the process.

The colony I was most worried is the native trachymyrmex septentrionalis. When I first got them they barely had 50-100 workers and one queen. they grew to 500+ workers and produced hundreds of virgin queens last fall. One weird thing is that they produced a final batch of queens very late in October/November and I kept them in their nest. I killed all the virgin queens from the previous batches. Some of these queens survived diapause and shed their wings so now there are dozens of wingless queens in the colony but only one is fertile which is impossible to distinguish. I really hope the true queen survived diapause. There weren’t many casualties even with the freezing temperatures. I estimate maybe 30-50 worker death out of 500+. The fungal garden was reduced to handful of pellets but once they were out of diapause I was hoping to see them revive these fungal pellets and rebuild their amazing fungal garden how they would do in the wild. Even if their fungal pellets died I do have fungus from my acromyrmex colony to transfer back to them. But it will be fascinating to see how these ants keeps the fungus alive in sub freezing temperatures in small pellets and revive them once weather warms up.

After a week in my ant room, I made sure their nest was well moistened and added some dried flowers and things to their set up. I am unable to get fresh flowers at this time but in a month or two I should be able to get some nice spring arrives. The ants have started to attach plant or organic matter to the fungal pellets as you will see in the pictures. Hoping they will able to regrow their garden so I can document this and share with you guys.

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[mbullock42086]

my papago ended up being infertile, glad to see a thriving colony

[kiedeerk]

Acromyrmex versicolor have their first batch of pupae of the year. The brood pile is getting massive and we will have a substantial worker boost in the next few weeks. I recently bought some dried organic blue lotus flower to try and it seems like they are a hit with both trachymyrmex and Acromyrmex. Flowers are scarce during the winter months so I have been giving them dried rose petals from last fall.

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[OwlThatLikesAnts]

Do you think the queens are acting like workers, or they are just wanna be queens 

but anyway, I am very jealous of your leaf cutter species, because here in Montreal we have black ant, big black ant, speedy black and, and red ant from Europe…

[kiedeerk]

Do you think the queens are acting like workers, or they are just wanna be queens 

but anyway, I am very jealous of your leaf cutter species, because here in Montreal we have black ant, big black ant, speedy black and, and red ant from Europe…

 

The infertile queens are most likely acting like workers. They are not fertile 100% and will probably slowly die off. the workers are fully aware who the true queen is. The infertile queens can be seen wandering the outworld like workers but the true queen is always deep in the nest

[OwlThatLikesAnts]

 

Do you think the queens are acting like workers, or they are just wanna be queens 

but anyway, I am very jealous of your leaf cutter species, because here in Montreal we have black ant, big black ant, speedy black and, and red ant from Europe…

 

The infertile queens are most likely acting like workers. They are not fertile 100% and will probably slowly die off. the workers are fully aware who the true queen is. The infertile queens can be seen wandering the outworld like workers but the true queen is always deep in the nest

 

That seems cool, it’s probably almost like having an even bigger major cast, the only other ants that I know do this is Camponotus, but other than that, I’ve never seen a queen act like a worker.

[kiedeerk]

Trachymyrmex septentrionalis fungus is growing quite fast after coming out of diapause. The fungus has doubled or tripled in size. The pictures also clearly show the white fuzz and tendrils of the fungus with the organic bits glued onto them. By this rate they will regrow their garden in no time. Quite fascinating how the fungus became alive and restarted growing coming out of freezing temperatures. The ants must have some sort of mechanism in order to keep the fungus alive in freezing temperatures for months in the garage.

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[kiedeerk]

Native Camponotus have been out of diapause for about a week or two now. Some of the queens have already started laying eggs and the larva have started to progress. It is crucial for temperate species to go through this diapause phase especially for Formica and Camponotus. They seem to have an internal clock that coincide with the outside environment. Even if you don’t diapause them they will stop brood production and enter a phase of stagnant growth. They will refuse proteins and stop foraging. So once you recognize this you have to get them ready by slowly lowering their ambient temperatures then once they are fully ready they can withstand well below freezing temperatures for months as long as they have access to fresh water. I dispaused my colonies from end of November to February.

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[kiedeerk]

Trachymyrmex fungus has grown substantially. They have consolidated all the pellets into the fungal gardens. Right now there are two separate gardens one on each side of the nest. They have been primarily given dried blue lotus flowers I bought recently. Still have to wait a couple months before flowers emerge so they will have to rely only on dried flowers for now. The fungus is growing at a rapid pace I’m thinking it’s because this colony has hundreds of workers tending to the fungus as the fungal garden seems to grow much faster than my Acromyrmex fungus.

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[kiedeerk]

Acromyrmex versicolor continues to thrive. The brood pile keeps growing. I estimate that they have 20-30 pupae now with much more to come. Some of the pupae have darkened eyes which are starting to mature. They will still take a few weeks to fully mature. Other pictures are from different colonies and their brood pile.

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[kiedeerk]

Pogonomyrmex barbatus thriving under heated conditions. Population has doubled since I began heating them. Queen has been producing eggs nonstop. Brood pile getting bigger by the day.

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[kiedeerk]

Trachymyrmex fungal garden has grown exponentially. It has grown to the size of a cracker. The fungus is starting to take on their signature honeycomb pattern with thin fungal walls. It is really fascinating that the trachy will grow the fungus in this shape and pattern while the acromyrmex using the same fungus grows their garden in totally different patterns and shapes. Acromyrmex in the wild and captivity usually grows their fungus on the sides and hanging down from the ceiling. Last pictures are from acromyrmex garden. The walls are much thicker and it’s more like downward pattern.

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Edited by kiedeerk, February 19 2025 - 4:20 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Fungus grower flex!

[MyrmecologyMaven]

You put all other fungus-growing ant keepers to shame! Keep up the insane posts! I aspire to do as well as you in my next Acromyrmex versicolor attempt!