11 replies to this topic

[Manitobant]

Y’all know what time it is…

As the weather gets colder and the 2024 anting season comes to a close, it is time for the yearly highlights thread, detailing our greatest catches, discoveries, achievements and overall highlights of the season.


For me, 2024 was a great year. I caught record numbers of parasitic lasius queens (including hundreds of latipes and interjectus on a single day!) as well as lots of myrmica, camponotus and fully claustral lasius. Formica flights were kinda mid but still got a decent number of queens. Most importantly though, I finally found harpagoxenus canadensis again after 4 years of searching, and this locality is a lot more accessible as it is not private property and thus i can go and find more whenever i please

[1tsm3jack]

I just started antkeeping this year but I am very happy with my anting this year, I found a lot of different species of Camponotus, Including Castaneus, Pennsylvanicus, Nearcticus, and Subbarbatus . I also found multiple Tetramorium Immigrans queens, Monomorium Mimimum queens, and Aphaenogaster queens. I also got myself a permit so that I could collect ants when I went to Utah this summer, and I collected multiple Pogonomyrmex queens during a nuptial flight which was amazing to watch, overall I would say my year was pretty good

Edited by 1tsm3jack, October 1 2024 - 7:21 AM.

[GOCAMPONOTUS]

Catching my first  C.sp of the season it always feels good to catch my first queen of the season.

[RushmoreAnts]

For me a highlight was catching highly successful Formica pallidefulva group queens, as for the most part the Great Plains landscape is dominated by Formica fusca group species. Ants_Dakota and I also caught an assortment of Myrmica queens from 7 species. We also came across a massive flight of Brachymyrmex depilis, which (as far as massive flights go) is uncommon. Ants_Dakota caught numerous parasitic Formica queens in the Black Hills, and we both caught several Formica fusca group queens. Our Lasius endeavors were subpar to previous years and caught only a couple dozen claustral queens and no parasitic queens. I missed the Solenopsis molesta flights, and Ants_Dakota only caught a few.

[Ants_Dakota]

For me a highlight was catching highly successful Formica pallidefulva group queens, as for the most part the Great Plains landscape is dominated by Formica fusca group species. Ants_Dakota and I also caught an assortment of Myrmica queens from 7 species. We also came across a massive flight of Brachymyrmex depilis, which (as far as massive flights go) is uncommon. Ants_Dakota caught numerous parasitic Formica queens in the Black Hills, and we both caught several Formica fusca group queens. Our Lasius endeavors were subpar to previous years and caught only a couple dozen claustral queens and no parasitic queens. I missed the Solenopsis molesta flights, and Ants_Dakota only caught a few.

I really enjoyed documenting my colonies inside of my journals and bringing light to "boring" ants.

[AntsTx]

For me a highlight of this year is not catching just Solenopsis invicta and Monomorium minimum, but catching many other species because I am more experienced. I caught Camponotus texanus, Camponotus vicinus, Pheidole obtusospinosa, Pogonomyrmex occidentalis, Crematogaster lineolata, and some Formica spp. Also some other stuff that I'm very happy about are that I found Psuedomyrmex apache in my front yard and Leptogenys spp in a park near me.

[ANTdrew]

This season was pretty typical for me, which I am grateful for. The two big highlights were coming across a big Forelius pruinosus flight at the beach and finding a Pheidole pillifera queen on the same day my son learned to finally ride a bike. That queen founded a successful colony now.

[AntsGodzilla]

I only found Tetramorium   

Edited by AntsGodzilla, October 26 2024 - 12:56 PM.

[bmb1bee]

It was quite the mid anting season for me; I didn't get to catch many ants due to my vacation in June. Aside from the yearly Tetramorium flights in my area, I didn't make it to a lot of other nuptial flights. Though there were Formica nuptial flights and plenty of interesting invertebrates at the spots I toured, I was unable to bring any back. Upon returning, I didn't have too many ants other than some harvesters like Pogonomyrmex subdentatus and Veromessor stoddardi. However, I managed to obtain multiple species from friends, including Formica obscuripes, Polyergus cf. mexicanus, and Lasius californicus. I'd never had experience with these species before and was glad to give it a try, even though a couple of the attempts didn't turn out well. I also got Pseudomyrmex apache from a trade this week, so I'm really excited to grow them out. I plan on creating a journal for those and recontinuing my entries for Hypoponera, which I have fortunately found more of.

 

Overall, this year was great in terms of *keeping* new species and trying out unfamiliar ants, but not so good in terms of personal anting experiences.

[mbullock42086]

Managed all these guys from my sheet just in my porch alone, cept for festinatus which came from a rest area:

Camponotus:  Sayi, ocreatus, fragilis, unknown festinatus SP, trepidulus, festinatus
Dorymyrmex:  Smithi, Insanus, bicolor, possible burica
Colobopsis:  papago
myrmecocystus:  Mexicanus, mimicus
pheidole:  cerebrosior, spadonia, possible obtusispinosa
Solenopsis:  Krockowi, amblychila
Formica perpilosa
Crematogaster lineolata/cerasi, with what were probably depilis and opuntiae
odontomachus desertorum
novomessor: albisetosus, cockerelli
Tetramorium immigrans
Brachymyrmex patagonicus

  Highlight of the year were the Acromyrmex flights by my house- managed to catch a really good one and got hundreds of queens.  They're all mostly still alive right now, making fungus, though the 30-queen colonies i tried failed miserably.

  though it appears 12 of them is just small enough to have fewer issues, it takes longer to found at that size, but I'm seeing progress.  to get the 30 queen colony to thrive i must give them donor fungus and it has to be a BIG chunk of it, too, because they need enough for both them AND their eggs.  but that's just too much effort for me, so imma break them apart into more 6-queen colonies and they should do fine with a bit of donor fungus.

[Mushu]

Managed all these guys from my sheet just in my porch alone, cept for festinatus which came from a rest area:

Camponotus:  Sayi, ocreatus, fragilis, unknown festinatus SP, trepidulus, festinatus
Dorymyrmex:  Smithi, Insanus, bicolor, possible burica
Colobopsis:  papago
myrmecocystus:  Mexicanus, mimicus
pheidole:  cerebrosior, spadonia, possible obtusispinosa
Solenopsis:  Krockowi, amblychila
Formica perpilosa
Crematogaster lineolata/cerasi, with what were probably depilis and opuntiae
odontomachus desertorum
novomessor: albisetosus, cockerelli
Tetramorium immigrans
Brachymyrmex patagonicus

  Highlight of the year were the Acromyrmex flights by my house- managed to catch a really good one and got hundreds of queens.  They're all mostly still alive right now, making fungus, though the 30-queen colonies i tried failed miserably.

  though it appears 12 of them is just small enough to have fewer issues, it takes longer to found at that size, but I'm seeing progress.  to get the 30 queen colony to thrive i must give them donor fungus and it has to be a BIG chunk of it, too, because they need enough for both them AND their eggs.  but that's just too much effort for me, so imma break them apart into more 6-queen colonies and they should do fine with a bit of donor fungus.

 

Ant paradise, must be nice .

[Michigan_ants]

My highlight of the season was catching lots of lasius social parasites and catching an aphaenogaster tennesseensis queen and a aphaenogaster rudis queen. Also catching some smaller camponotus species such as nearcticus and caryae.