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Gary D: Aphaenogaster senilis (15. Aug 2007 12:29)

Hi,

I have ordered some of these ants and would like some information :

1. Do they/can they sting their prey?
2. It has been suggested in another topic elsewhere on the forum that these ants may be infected with some kind of fungus from Spain - do you have any more info on this? Can we be certain that the source of the ants is 'clean'?

Thanks in advance
Gary

Martin S.: (15. Aug 2007 14:55)

Dear Gary,

we have read this topic, but we check all ant in our store. All ants are clean. We have never found in the last seven years a fungus on ants.
A infection is on many ways possible.

regards
Martin

Krümel: (15. Aug 2007 16:37)

But theres another possibility, too.

When the ants come from Spain, where the fungus is known, and as we saw in the other thread, or if you search in the AmeisenWiki, it shows that the fungus is black. And who will recognise very little blops on dark and speedy ants ????

miszt: (15. Aug 2007 17:23)

Without a Scientific analysis of the (suspected) fungus, its impossible to say for sure what it is. It may be that these ants have picked up a fungus from the enviroment they are currently in, i wuld suspect that if it where a fungus from an area they lived in, they wuld have some form of defence against it, from the pictures it doesnt look like they do, being so heavily infected so fast, so it may not be the same one

these guys have been doing this for a long time, i'm personally fairly confidant that they know what they are doing and would spot somthing like this in advance

Dr.House: (15. Aug 2007 17:47)

The question is ... how long does it take till the fungus begins to spread over the body. Some spores remain in earth for years before a fungus is growing.

I don't know how long the incubation time is ... maybe you need the right environment parameters and wait some weeks before someone could see anything under a microscope or something.

I think it would be very difficult to guarantee that ants don't carry spores, bacteria or maybe even mites.

So it is important neither the ants nor anything inside of the formicarium should have contact to environment ... ... better save than sorry :-) It's a matter of responsibility if someone owns "exotic" creatures.

miszt: (15. Aug 2007 19:21)

very true, and infact any animal that is moved from country to country should be kept away from native wildlife, in life and death