14 replies to this topic

[stels]

This is my first journal in this forum. I was thinking about what to write and decided: I will tell you about one of my favorite ants. 

 

I'll tell about Carebara affinis.

In the past this ant called Pheidologeton affinis, but in the 2014 genus Carebara and Pheidologeton were combined into the common genus Carebara. Term "Pheidologeton" is more interest and fearsome! I and my colleagues still call this ants Pheidologeton or simple "geton".

 

I got this ants from China. I and my friend ordered 6 colonies of the C. affinis and 5 of C. diversa. C. diversa it's uncontrollable relative of C. affinis. Maby it was better that all C.diversa are died from mite. 4 colonies of affina died too. 2 colonies lived well. But after a while one of them lost their queen and the other find  mite! After this bigan my great mite war. I don't know exactly how I won the mite. I used various herbs, essential oils and a bait of the cockroaches and killed zophobas. In one day number of the mite began decrease.

 

There are no any mite there. This colony lived in the aquarium with soil about two years. In this month I desided resettle them to the classic plaster nest. Small colonies don't survive in plaster but big colony of easy living in well-humid plaster.

 

This is current formicarium for carebara.

 

Arena is small. C.affina principally hidden underground ant. They always bury their food. In the next post I show you how it's going. For this I placed there a bit of sand. 

 

Few photo with big solders and small workers:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Someone looking at us out of the darkness

 

 

Edited by stels, September 4 2015 - 7:24 AM.

[Alexant]

I am so glad these are on here now

[William. T]

Awesome! I love seeing foreign ant species and how people keep them.

[BrittonLS]

Darn cool foreign ants! Those are pretty awesome, thanks for sharing. Get your friends to share their ants on here too if they have any. And way to go on beating the mites, who knows how you pulled that off, very lucky. 

 

Are those gigantic ones majors?

 

And as usual just make sure they're locked up tight lol. You don't want to accidentally bump it off the table one day and have them go crazy all over Texas

[NightsWebs]

Wow, nice colony! Polymorphic ants are the best! The majors look huge in comparison! Thank you for Sharing!

[stels]

Are those gigantic ones majors?

 

And as usual just make sure they're locked up tight lol. You don't want to accidentally bump it off the table one day and have them go crazy all over Texas

 

No, it's not majors ) Pheidologeton have many many castes, but bigger of them I could not take photos. They hide in the darkest corners of the chamber and usually thre are many workers near. Ants on the photos is not very big - 9-10 mm. Majors size is about 15-17mm and more. They can bite through the skin. But it's happens very rare.  Pheidologeton it's one othe species who have not only majors caste, but also supermajor caste.

 

I want show few videos of my friend colony. He don't mind. He keep Carebara diversa. It's more agressive and slightly larger ant then Carebara affinis.

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=IhvHXUspW_I

https://www.youtube....h?v=jt1h7OZpmSc

Also I want to show you new photos of the strange ant in this colony. It is ergatoid - not normal queen but not normal worker-solder.Sometimes colony grows this caste. I was very surprised when I saw her. She is bigger then any big solder, like normal queen, but have small queen's thorax. Look at this: there is small solder in the right corner of the photo. This solder you can see on the previouse photos.

 

Edited by stels, September 4 2015 - 7:25 AM.

[NightsWebs]

thank you for sharing! 17mm is a huge ant! That's just awesome!

[LC3]

Did you ever get bitten by one of them? XD

[dermy]

Wow this Colony is crazy looking. The size of that one is cool!

[Diffeomorphismus]

Thank you for sharing your experience with these nice ants with us. But I am sure that the right name is Carebara affinis and not Carebara affina. The latin form "affina" does not exist. The right declension is: affinis, affinis, affine

[William. T]

Awesome pictures. Does the massive worker do lifting and act as a troop carrier or does it chop up food?

[stels]

Thanks!

 

Did you ever get bitten by one of them? XD

 

 No   But they have sting. When workers attack you, they begin to sting. Small worker stings do not hurt... it's unpleasantly... But ant about 5mm sting stronger then Solenopsis geminata worker. It's hurt! Solder about 17mm sting VERY hurt! I didn't try it. It told me my friend who met them in Vietnam. The solders sting him. Also big solder of C.diversa really can bite your skin. But I never get him this opportunity ) 

 

Thank you for sharing your experience with these nice ants with us. But I am sure that the right name is Carebara affinis and not Carebara affina. The latin form "affina" does not exist. The right declension is: affinis, affinis, affine

 

In our forum we discuss it desided that affina is correct. I don't know why we think this! You right: affinis is correct term. I'll edit journal title. Thank you!

 

Awesome pictures. Does the massive worker do lifting and act as a troop carrier or does it chop up food?

In most cases they play role of pots with food. Something like honeypots ants. In my colony they never chop seeds. Now I mean biggest solder about 15-20mm. Smaller caste like 5-10mm size workers do many works. Usually this is food crop and chamber or tonnels building. 

 

Workers are small but very clever. Soldiers in contrast of workers are a little blunt. Until that time they never left anthill chambers.

For example behavior of Carebara diversa workers and solders.Workers perform the comunications task. They are very fast and sociable. They find the food very quickly. If the food big ... or still alive!... some numbers of workers back to the nest and find big solder (or solders). After this they snapped at him and begin easy bit him and beat the antenna. And the soldier begins to run with workers on his head and thorax wherever warkers want.

[BrittonLS]

Holy cow, they're like 20x bigger than the workers! That's ridiculous! No wonder you ordered these ants lol. This is really cool, show us more pictures and things any time lol.

I am seriously freaking out over here.

[antmaniac]

Amazing ants! The major workers in Pheidole Sp. is the same. They usually just take order from the minor workers for some reason. Their default action is to run and retreat back to the nest to protect the most valuables, such as queen and brood, since the majors are very precious resource of the colony. They will go out and attack, if the minor order them to, maybe using scents and dragging. The minor worker also use this method to calm the major, sometimes one or two minor will get cut in half in this process during the major's rampage. When you reach the queen, however, the major will act totally different, they are not longer shy away but more aggressively defending/attacking.

[MegaMyrmex]

Update?!?!?!?!?!