17 replies to this topic

[LC3]

Caught this colony on 14 May from a log that used to be part of a garden bed. A bunch of these logs were being moved and they were not going anywhere friendly in particular so I decided to break one open with a shovel.

 

In all fairness though I had prior knowledge that a Lepto colony resided in one of these logs. There seems to be a lot of Leptothorax around all of a sudden.

 

 

 

 

 

They're settled down for now and seem to keep their brood in one spot. The queens usually reside somewhere at the back.

I think one of the pictures shows one queen in it. I can't tell

 

There's no clear picture of the queen unfortunately because the idea of taking a picture of a queen is quite unthinkable and is totally illogical to do.

 

 

Ok so kind of a bit of rambling here but does anyone know anything about Leptothorax, they don't seem very popular. I personally find them quite interesting is there any special requirements or general rule of thumbs for them? behavior wise they're very timid, they never seem to fight any ants and just tuck their appendages in when threatened, they can be insanely fast when they want to. I've noticed their nests mainly consists of a few small chambers and lots of tunnels their flat bodies seem quite fit for the narrow crevices they nest in. The queens seem to be different sizes too which is quite interesting as well.

Edited by LC3, February 19 2018 - 5:52 PM.

[LC3]

Pictures of an alate I found today.

I wonder what happens if I try merging it with the colony I already have.

 

 

 

[LC3]

[May/23/2016]

 

Little update + observations:

 

The colony hasn't really grown but I don't expect it to since it's a rather mature colony all ready, just watching it for any indication of a die off. So far none. Most of the larvae have started to pupate and it seems like they've been digging into the wood in the middle.

 

These guys have very interesting foraging behavior. They go solo and seem to prefer dead dried insects beyond else. If there is any disturbance they immediately freeze and can stay like this for quite a long time.

Edited by LC3, May 23 2016 - 9:08 AM.

[LC3]

[21/06/2016]

 

To my surprise they are still growing, only one worker died and all the previous brood has eclosed. The new eggs have started to develop into larvae as well.

 

They have also dug into the wood located at the centre of the tube, the entrance is at the top of the wood. They made the place quite cozy indeed. Anyways the majority of the workforce (I'd say 60%) usually resides in the wood, I am pretty sure they have some brood in the wood as well.

 

Their favourite food so far seems to be mealworms and dead aphids. (which is what they tend to feed on in the wild) and have no problem eating really old dead things.

 

You can see one of their queens amidst her workers.

 

Same queen from the last picture is at the entrance into the chunk of wood. There's a lot of workers in there so she can't really get in.

 

Another interesting behavior, although I rarely ever see these guys tandem running I have seen them do something else a couple of times lately.There's usually always 2 - 3 foragers around in the out world but sometimes these guys have a giant meeting, they all gather up around the entrance, in the tunnel on the ground or paper and sit there for some time. It seems like they recruit more workers as well over time but eventually everyone goes back in. 

 

 

It's also come to my attention that there is around 12 or 15 L. muscorum subspecies in N.America, and that they conduct raids on nearby colonies of other Leptothorax.  

 

 

Also the alate died. <NotSurprised>

Edited by LC3, June 21 2016 - 6:40 PM.

[LC3]

[Jul/07/2016]

 

The colony and it's behavior changed, without any competition from more dominant ants around (i.e Formica, Lasius, Myrmica, Camponotus) they've become much more outgoing and aggressive. The foragers still freeze if they feel disturbed but if provoked resolve to attacking at times instead of running like before. They don't run around as often either. When their nest is exposed to light instead of retreating or evacuating they aggressively storm out of the nest but they seem more curious onto what is going on instead of actually fighting. Hence why I can't take pictures because the tube will be covered with them wandering around.

 

The colony has another generation ready to pupate (around 10 larvae) and a bunch of other brood in different stages, both queens seem to be present and to date I think they've lost around 5 or 6 workers due to old age. (impossible to tell as they've chewed up all the dead)

[LC3]

[Aug/08/2016]

 

I suspect this colony is preparing to hibernate, as the workers have very plump gasters. The queens have halted egg production and the previous generation of larvae seem to have stopped developing. They are all very big but aren't pupating. Usually there is much more variation with half of them pupating, and the rest still growing. All the eggs laid before the queens stopped laying eggs have developed into tiny larvae. The workers have gotten quite large too, with a deent amount of them being big as the queens or larger.

 

Pictures are rather hard to take since there's still that chunk of wood in the tube.

 

[Loops117]

Really nice colony you have going so far. I found myself a queen that looks very similar to yours, if not exact. Think i'm gonna mimic your test tube setup for my queen.

[LC3]

Sure, just don't let the wood touch the wet cotton or it may mold or warp. I also have no clue how I'm getting the wood out of that tube either. 

 

Good luck with your queen

[LC3]

[Dec/8/2016]

 

This colony was removed from hibernation during late November. I'm afraid I either may have hibernated the too early or not enough.

Upon removal from the fridge the colony still remained rather dormant, until I moved the large chunk of wood out. A few workers started attacking the smaller queen in a similar way I observe most of my Myrmica respond to foreign queens. They grab them by the limb and end up dragging the around, usually into the outworld. The fighting stopped once they were in a new formicarium and recommenced around a week later. The gynomorphic queen is acting a bit 'not sure what to do' and doesn't see comfortable around workers, she's been acting a bit submissive (i.e tucking in antennae and  flattening herself). The other queen does not seem to mind the company or another queen. She doesn't seem interested in her and neither ever interact (similar to before).

 

The multiple species classified under Leptothorax muscorum are recorded to display functional monogyny but they are also classified as facultatively polygynous. In this sense one common thing that I've seen documented from all these studies is that there's a dominant queen and lesser dominant queens, that can be inseminated but sterile or completely sterile and not inseminated. During the cases that list multiple egg laying queens the colony behaves more like an olygyny. Dominance of queens is reasserted during the spring, where the dominant queen would be getting ready to lay eggs and any competing queens would be dealt with by workers, either the queen is dragged out of the nest or killed in the process. Most colonies described being olygynous also reported the queens having their own chambers.

 

According to a paper I read some time back before I found this colony Leptothorax found in parts of Siberia were more tolerant to polygyny depending on available resources. 

 

I believe the original status of this colony at the time of being caught was olygynous, the tunnels were very narrow, only able to fit one or two workers at a time, the chambers were slits into the wood with each queen had her own roughly around 15cm apart from one another. I think the slim tunnels might not only have made it harder for workers to attack a queen but also decreased their density at a given area and thus weren't exposed to each queen often. Even when they were in close proximity to each other after being caught I think both queens already established themselves and recieved little challenge in return.

I'm thinking of making a new formicarium that would accommodate the more flat tunnels, as for the mean time I might put them back in the fridge to stop the fighting. None of the larvae have developed into pupae yet and the queen hasn't laid any eggs yet either.

The current nest is too big anyways, they stuff everyone into 1/4 of the nest with roughly 3/5ths in one chamber.

 

 

 

I wonder if putting the back into hibernation will cause them to reset the cycle.

Edited by LC3, December 8 2016 - 6:40 PM.

[LC3]

Well I never found the time to build another formicarium and it looks like the second queen is done for even if I could save her.

I'll try introducing more queens but it may be impossible. The only way I can think of this possibly happening is breeding queens from the this colony with males and reintroducing them or merging colonies (which I'm not exactly sure how that works).

I'm still not exactly sure what triggered them to attack the queen or if it was destined all along.

 

http://www.pnas.org/...2/4572.full.pdf

https://books.google...olonies&f=false

https://www.research...x_curvispinosus

 

Most articles or studies I find on Leptothorax were published in the 1970s -1990s.

I believe articles 1 & 2 hold some important information that may apply to why this colony turned on one of its queens and that is something to do with the workers 'unrecognizing' the other as their own.

None of those seem to be about Leptothorax muscorum specifically however.

Edited by LC3, December 16 2016 - 12:14 AM.

[LC3]

[Feb/5/2017]

 

Colony produced alates with overwintered brood a while ago. All of them eclosed, most of them were female (only one male, that was quickly slaughtered) and proceeded to remove their wings. They now act like workers. 

 

The queen still lays eggs, but very little of them. I think the colony might die out soon but I have no clue.

[Nathant2131]

Good luck on this colony! Leptothorax is a genus I'm thinking about keeping.

[Martialis]

Update..?

[Nathant2131]

Yes, update!

Edited by Nathant2131, May 31 2017 - 2:35 AM.

[LC3]

[Feb/19/2018]

 

Been pretty much an entire year since the last update.

The colony never ended up dying but they might as well have been dead. For some reason the colony never stopped producing alates which either wandered about until they died or were killed by the workers. The queen would barely lay more then a few eggs at a time and kicked the bucket soon after. After that the remaining workers and whatever was left with the brood basically stopped doing anything, so I just put them in alcohol a few days ago.

 

Then as luck or whatever would have it, on Saturday I was in the process of breaking open one of the loose pieces of wood I gathered at the dyke a week ago (so sometime on February 11/12) to feed to my termites and ended up finding a worker that scurried across one of the tunnels.  Soon after 2-4 workers appeared at the broken open tunnels in the wood. As for how I didn't notice them, it was a loose piece of wood on the ground so I didn't expect to find anything in it, there were no clearly visible entrances or cracks in the wood either that would indicate something has been burrowing into it, but then again these ants can slip through a mm of space.

 

I should have kept that colony around a bit longer I suppose, maybe could have brood boosted the new one I found.

 

TL;DR killed the remnants of old Leptothorax colony, broke open week old dried wood I found outside, ended up finding a bunch of Lepto workers in it. 

 

I have no idea how many workers and queens there are, how big the colony is, the status of the brood. So far the most amount of workers I've seen out all at once is around 6 or 7. I saw them drag a larva across the exposed tunnels so there's a decent chance there's a queen present as well. Looked around the room for signs of dead ants and found only evidence for one.  

 

Feb 19, 2018. Red and yellow represent places I think they might have tunnels

 

Feb 19, 2018. I sort of repaired the broken area with termite pellets. I'm curious to see how they fare out overtime

 

I'm currently wondering what I should do with them in the meantime. I think I'll leave them in the wood and just give them food and water and see how it plays out. They seem pretty comfortable in the wood despite it being really dry. 

 

So far they've been digging or removing debris from the nest and piling it elsewhere in the nest, foraging a bit. They will accept water and small pieces of mealworms but are mostly uninterested in sugar water.

Edited by LC3, February 19 2018 - 5:53 PM.

[Jadeninja9]

I hope this new colony thrives. Aren't Leptothorax known as acorn ants? 

[YsTheAnt]

I hope this new colony thrives. Aren't Leptothorax known as acorn ants?

I think you are referring to temnothorax.

[Jadeninja9]

 

I hope this new colony thrives. Aren't Leptothorax known as acorn ants?

I think you are referring to temnothorax.

 

Oh yeah lol