4 replies to this topic

[Shrike311]

I have a decently large colony of Tetramorium immigrans that lives under my concrete driveway near the border with an adjoining neighbor's driveway.  That means there is concrete pavement all round them with the nearest lawn being about 25-feet on one side and about 45 to 60 feet on the other 3 sides of the nest.  There is a small landscaped landscaping fabric/wood-chip mulch patch about 5 feet from the nest that is about 8 square feet but there is no vegetation in the wood-chip mulch area.

 

I caught a Tetramorium immigrans queen in my front yard and have raised them up to about 80+ workers.  They are pretty voracious feeders and I give them a mixture of insects and Sunburst nectar.

 

The wild colony in my driveway seems to live in a relatively pretty desolate and barren landscape.  I assume they are foraging down the driveway cracks to the lawn about 25-feet away.  What do you suppose they are eating?  I assume they run across the odd insect; however what do you supposed they are doing for their required sugars?

 

Do they forage for insects underground via new exploratory tunneling or is it pretty much all above ground foraging?

 

There is apparently plenty of food since there is the one large colony and every year about 5-10 other colonies start up in the pavement cracks in my driveway.

Edited by Shrike311, Yesterday, 10:18 AM.

[bmb1bee]

In the wild I assume they eat various insects (live and dead), food crumbs, and fruits that can be found on the ground. At my school, most of the half eaten fruit that people toss on the ground get scavenged by groups of Tetramorium. In your area they may be eating seeds for their carbohydrate intake, if sugars from fruit and nectar are not available.

[Izzy]

Haha, this is a great question, because now that you mention it when I was younger I don't recall ever seeing them eat anything but human food that I or one of the other neighborhood children would drop on the ground. Yet there were massive colonies everywhere.

[Ants_Dakota]

I have a decently large colony of Tetramorium immigrans that lives under my concrete driveway near the border with an adjoining neighbor's driveway.  That means there is concrete pavement all round them with the nearest lawn being about 25-feet on one side and about 45 to 60 feet on the other 3 sides of the nest.  There is a small landscaped landscaping fabric/wood-chip mulch patch about 5 feet from the nest that is about 8 square feet but there is no vegetation in the wood-chip mulch area.

 

I caught a Tetramorium immigrans queen in my front yard and have raised them up to about 80+ workers.  They are pretty voracious feeders and I give them a mixture of insects and Sunburst nectar.

 

The wild colony in my driveway seems to live in a relatively pretty desolate and barren landscape.  I assume they are foraging down the driveway cracks to the lawn about 25-feet away.  What do you suppose they are eating?  I assume they run across the odd insect; however what do you supposed they are doing for their required sugars?

 

Do they forage for insects underground via new exploratory tunneling or is it pretty much all above ground foraging?

 

There is apparently plenty of food since there is the one large colony and every year about 5-10 other colonies start up in the pavement cracks in my driveway.

There are a lot of unique ways ants can get food that are near invisible to us humans. A sect of ants, labeled as cryptic species, can live almost entirely underground without ever even seeing light by feeding on root aphid nectar and earthworms, as well as probably more undiscovered food sources. Above ground, I think that there are a lot more dead and catchable insects than we could imagine, even with all of the pesticides, so I am sure they catch and consume those quickly, probably more quickly than you can even see them do so. Sugars are a little more of a mystery, but both above and below ground aphids, as well as fruits and nectar can provide this. I remember this one particular flower bush near the end of my driveway that, every spring, right before it bloomed, it would have a juicy nectar like coating on the flower buds that Formica and Tetramorium would scrabble over. These are just some of the observations that I have made, and I hope they help!

[mbullock42086]

probably lots of prey hiding in the wood chips, despite lack of vegetation.  spiders, etc.