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I was always fascinated by ants, but i only started to keeping them (in a descend farm) a few years ago. Started of with Myrmica rubra and later on with Pheidole pallidula . Now i have about 20 different species and i would like to keep some more, the only problem is i do not have much room for it now, so i have to wait until i move (later on next year).
ok, i first noticed ants when i was about 10, and indeed i kept a few in a jar,( myrmica rubra) i had no idea what i was doing, i just knew i was facinated by them, id always been interested in spiders, which i still am, but when i saw some ants attaking a spider, i was like wow, so collected some in a jar and proceeded to feed them spiders, i kept them in my garden shed, id half filled the jar with soil, and was amazed when i saw that they had made tunnels into it, i think i kept them for about a week, when my dad found them, and said he'd let them all go, as it was'nt appropriat to keep them in a jar, i remeber being very upset, lol sounds silly now as i sit and think back, i do not have many child hood memories, but for some reason this i can recall. I have however only began to keep them properly since my Camponotus cruentatus arrived in may.
I love ants since my childhood, and I observed them whenever i met them, usually on streets, and some people certainly did think I am sort of strange kid, sitting and staring into a pavement. When I grew up, ants still fascinated me.
I thought about keeping ants home, but I thought it is too hard to make good environment to them. But this year i've read some web pages about that and i've started my own colony last summer. I even didn't need to hunt for queen, a brand new Lasius niger queen flew to me through window :)
nice discussion going on :thumright:
tail_ i try not to tell people about that i collect ants because it will destroy my rep!!!
i try not to look at ants wheres theres loads of people as-well because of this!!!
nice to hear though i always just cant help myself to look at ants, like when im walking down the street!!!
any other people who would like to say about when they started collecting ants?................feel free this thread never gets old lol :grin:
I started keeping ants when I was about 8. Though I was interested in them a long time before that.
I read everything I could get my hands on and one of books that really excited me when I was young was an old book by Sir John Lubbock called Ants, Bees and Wasps. It was written in 1929 - though I am guessing my copy is a reprint. A brilliant book, full of experiments on ants and bees conducted by the author.
My first attempt at keeping ants was Lasius niger, but unfortunately I managed to kill the queen while extracting the colony from a plant pot. Then when I was about 8 I was at a family friend's house in Wales, and while exploring their garden (mostly looking for ants, which is something I still do), I lifted a board that was on top of a compost heap and found a a large colony of Lasius niger including the queen. I managed to collect a large number of workers. I still remember getting this massive colony home and trying to work out how I could get them into the formicarium I had built (vertical, 2 sheets of glass with wood around the edges. I but the whole colony in a partly filled bath with a raised island. Nobody in my family was allowed to use the bath for a couple of days while the ants gradually moved into the formicarium. I kept them in the cellar surrounded by a moat of grease. I have to say that my mother was very supportive of my interest.
When I was about 9 or 10 I also kept Mymica ruginodis and Lasius flavus. I didn't know anyone else who kept ants so I was pretty much self-taught. I learned that horizontal formicariums tend to work better for ants such as Lasius niger, Lasius flavus and Myrmica r. species.
I raised my first Lasius niger colony from a nuptial flight queen when I was about 14, and kept this through school and even took it with me to university. At around that time I also brought back a number of queens and small colonies from visits to the South of France.
After that my lifestyle was less settled. I think people tend to move around a fair bit in their early 20's and keeping ants was more difficult. I did have a couple of colonies or Monomorium pharaonis - in escape proof, sealed tube formicaria. One of which I even installed on my desk at work. I want to make it clear that I know the risks with M pharaonis, and am not advising them as a good choice for people who aren't v. experienced with ants in captivity, or who aren't old enough to deal with the consequences if things go wrong.
I have continued to read extensively on ants. My favourite book, was a bit of an investment, but I would consider it a must for anyone who is passionate about developing their knowledge - http://www.amazon.com/Ants-Bert-H%C3%B6lldobler/dp/0674040759
More recently I have kept Pheidole pallidula - as described on another thread.
And this year I temporarily kept Myrmicra r again because they are common in my garden - though I released the colony again when it grew.
I have also done a lot of travelling, where observing ants has been a big part of the motivation. So Europe, various parts of Africa, Madagascar and Australia (South America is next on the list).
I am now settled in a bigger house with my partner and intend to start keeping ants again more seriously, though I am more interested in species that I have a particular passion for and these tend to be European or more exotic.
I noticed a few people on this thread are a little embarassed about their hobby and I would counter this by saying that I have never been shy about talking to people about ants. I have found girlfriends, friends, colleagues, people i've met are generally fascinated by ants. It's true that some people have a general dislike for 'creepy crawlies', but there is a almost universal interest in the mechanics of social insect societies.
I generally talk to people about the concept of emergence and parallels with other emergent systems. Our brains are a good example of this - lots of simple units co-operating to generate complex behaviour and even memories, where no individual entity can be said to hold that memory or plan of behaviour. And when it comes to sexual reproduction, ant colonies can be compared to complex multi-cellular organisms such as ourselves. After all most of the cells in your body (workers), and that includes the cells in our brains, only exist to allow the cells in our gonads to reproduce. Perhaps what I'm trying to say is that people are interested in ants if you can explain how things about ants relate to ourselves.
During my travels in Madagascar last year I was thrilled at the reaction of the national park guides, who were incredibly enthusiastic about learning about ants - inhabitants of the environment to which they'd previously paid very little attention.
Sorry for the long post.
jimmyve, he means the one above ur post :grin:
I noticed a few people on this thread are a little embarassed about their hobby and I would counter this by saying that I have never been shy about talking to people about ants. I have found girlfriends, friends, colleagues, people i've met are generally fascinated by ants. It's true that
some people have a general dislike for 'creepy crawlies', but there is a almost universal interest in the mechanics of social insect societies
i'm one of the embaresed ones lol! i dont want to say to many people/if any, that i keep ants just in case, better safe than sorry. plus just in case people start thinking im some sort of GEEK! at skool i mean at the moment im pretty populuer i do mc/rap/spit battles whatever u wanna call em, hang with da hard kids mainly cos im one lol, listen to rap/rnb music, play football/basketball and im quite a good rapper (fast thinker good rymer). now every one probaly thinks im some vain/big head, ol well fault i would just say it any cos its true and people will critersise why i dont tell other people about that im into ants.
thanks for da post anyway :D
sounds like a great book, but im not paying dat much 4 it though lol. maybe some day when im a milloniare :sign_lol:
I have been interested in ants since i could walk, but I only started keeping ants at the begining 2007 with my first colony, C.ligniperda(yes, it's still alive today :wink: ).
phasmid:i have really aswell, as far as i can remeber anyway, but i think i was around 7 when i started collecting them in bottles/jars to keep as pets :)
Ive always loves ants myself and always found L.Niger well exciting.. they used to tunnel there way into our dining room then through into our kitchen.. right by the bin.. always remember layin on the kitchen floor an watchin them carry little bits away....
I dont remember ever tryin to catch them tho.. my mum would have killed me lol
had loads of differnt ones in the back garden tho.. and now i think about it the ants i always really loved are the ones i saw in the forest.. huge things around 1-1.5cm long... and the nest was always huge and looked like saw dust... Not sure what they was tho.. Anybody got any ideas??
Anyway.. First colony was last year when i noticed a queen on ebay.. unfortunatly they vainished.. so either escaped or died :(
Now ive got me a new colony from Miszt :D :D Which hopefully will live forever lol