hi, i have a colony of Camponotus ligniperda about 200 ants, and when i put food in they dont seem very aggresive to it they take a small bite and leave it, where as when i had my Lasius niger colony they would hunt their food down and kill it in no time, does anyone know an ant species that is aggresive and uses a lot of ants to bring down their food, cheers
Jay2slow
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With just 200 workers your Camponotus ligniperda colony is still in it's infancy, they will become more aggressive as they grow (this species can grow to several 10000 workers).
My Camponotus barbaricus started to actively attack food insects once they passed around 800-1000 workers, so there's still some way to go. Camponotus grow extremely slow at the start but pick up speed dramatically once they passed a few hundred workers. Mine (they are sort of fast growing) had 6-monthly population stats of around 0, 4, 200, 800, 2000, 5000 - I think you can see where this is going.
So don't worry, they will become aggressive, you just need a lot of patience with Camponotus.
Hi,
I have kept a colony of Camponotus ligniperda for five years. As Serafine already said, they take some time to form a huge colony that gets more reckless.
I want to add that from my experience, weather conditions, e.g. temperature and humidity also have a large effect on the behaviour of these ants. When it is hot and humid (sticky weather) they will get extremely agressive, move extremely fast when disturbed and bite literally anything.
At the moment I keep Camponotus vagus , and they might even be a tad more agressive.