ANTSTORE World of Ants

[highered]

I fed them a big spider (mini tarantula looking) on last Thursday and Saturday and on Tuesday got more locusts so am feeding one very big locust every other day now.

[highered]

Now all my workers of which there are about 10 are in the foraging area not in there nest. In the beton nest there are little black bits (maybe mould)? definately not eggs. The workers are just sitting around, walking or running sometimes, they don't appear ill or anything. any ideas please? I am feeding one large locust every other day.

[Messorus]

Having thought about it maybe this species really does need protein like every day because what I was doing was feeding them every day for a week then a week no protein, and so on one week on one week off. Now what I will try is feeding them one large locust every other day every week and see how that works.

Ponerinae ants must be feed every day, or there´s a big chance that they will eat their brood! When I was keeping my Pachycondyla and Odontoponera colonies, I had to give them several insects pear day, they was hungry like all the time. And also now, Skippy is keeping P. rufipes, they are just eating and eating like mad. This thing about Ponerine is really good known, I thought you knew that

[highered]

Ahh don't worry I started feeding them a locust every other day which works well, but this must be kept up or else they start dying. There are some still alive, but it is annoying not being able to tell which one is the queen as I never know whether I am feeding a condemned colony or not! However I did once see one egg so there was a queen at one point. I am about to transfer them to an even drier nest. It seems they can live fine in normal humidity, they just wont lay eggs unless its a dry climate.

[highered]

Well they were ok for a while, I think it was too hard to give them a suitable nest, I tried three different types. The queen was definately fertile as she did lay another egg, and obviously if she wasn't fertile in a small colony the workers would have killed her. Its possible they need a very dry climate in order to lay eggs and of course absolutely must be feed every day or every other day. PS the black bits in their nest before, I worked out was there poo because of how much they eat.

[utukku]

I have the large colony of P. cribrinoda, they need feeding everyday and VERY warm formicarium, the temperature in nest must be permanently between 26° - 30°C . In my formicarium they don´t eat honey or sugar water only insects. I moisten the nest two-times per month. This species hasn´t true queen only gamergates and new colonies originate by fission. This is very aggressive species, workers attack anything even my fingers and tweezers during cleaning their tank. My colony sometimes produces alate males, but the males are usually killed by workers in a day or two. Platythyrea cribrinoda is my favourite ant species, in my opinion breeding the colony is much easier than similar ants from tropical rainforest such as Paraponera clavata.

[ant kid]

Would you mind making a journal for us?

[utukku]

Would you mind making a journal for us?

Sorry, but I am very busy for regular reports, but I try to make better photos.

[baumarkthammer]

@utukku, do you have a blog or something like that in which we can check on your ants? It would be nice to see some more of this ants because most photos of them are uploaded as Pachycondyla sp. because it was sold like that in the past. As seen here viewtopic.php?f=124&t=1953&start=0 (on German).

I have also experienced that this ants are very aggressive but could you maybe tell me how painful the sting is?

[utukku]

I was stung two times, it is not so painful as Myrmecia sting, it is comparable with wasp sting, but I am not allergic to insect stings, maybe other persons have different experiences. I haven´t any blog, but I will upload some photos here (but my formicarium isn´t so luxury like the one: viewtopic.php?f=124&t=1953&start=0)

[highered]

I never got stung, mine prefered to try to bite me!
I see you have given them a bit of soil which they have taken into their nest? I guess this makes their cleaning of their nest easier ie getting rid of their poo. PS Whenever I tried to heat mine, they always shyed away from it!

[highered]

I briefly forgot about their way of reproducing. My colony arrived with cocoons which hatched and several eggs. However, as I didn't feed every day they naturally ate the eggs. There were no dead on arrivals, but the odd ant died. Howver I only ever got an ant producing ONE SINGLE EGG. Now I do know that this normally means that it is an infertile queen producing a male. As this is all I ever got, I think who I bought them from was conning me, the problem with buying ants with a queen which is indisguishable, eg that isn't bigger then the workers. I bought this colony from Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar so I will never buy from them again.

[baumarkthammer]

Well you should first contact the shop before charging them. The Mr. K. is the only one who ever brought this species here and all the colonies that lived here over years were sold by him, too.
You may get cover from him.
Also this gamergate producing species very early produces males, you should wait until more than one male grows up.
The way I unterstood you, you are telling us that you never fed your colony much and you got one male and no workers which is odd for this species over that time. It sounds like you keep them wrong the way in understand you.

[utukku]

I briefly forgot about their way of reproducing. My colony arrived with cocoons which hatched and several eggs. However, as I didn't feed every day they naturally ate the eggs. There were no dead on arrivals, but the odd ant died. Howver I only ever got an ant producing ONE SINGLE EGG. Now I do know that this normally means that it is an infertile queen producing a male. As this is all I ever got, I think who I bought them from was conning me, the problem with buying ants with a queen which is indisguishable, eg that isn't bigger then the workers. I bought this colony from Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar so I will never buy from them again.

My ants are also from Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar you must feed them very much and keep them in suitable conditions.
P.S. I am ill, so I cannot snap promised photos.

[highered]

I know they need "suitable conditions", the point is althoug the odd one died over time, I should have gotten one fertile queen with them, the workers would have done everything to keep her alive....