ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Deanola]

A general question for everybody hear.

What species of ants do you keep/ or have you kept, Which are your favourites and what experiences have you had with your ants,

I hope by each of us providing our own thoughts it may help some beginners decide how they are going to go about ant keeping + it will allow everyone to share knowledge and hopefully help us all keep our ants better,

thanks

Dean..

[Deanola]

Ok,

I will give the thread a start.

Currently i keep the following colonies

1 Young Myrmecia gulosa colony, started from queen,
1 small Pheidologeton diversus colony between 10-15 workers + Queen.
1 Larger Pheidologeton colony 100 - 150 Workers + Queen, few very small soldiers

1 Messor structor colony
2 Lasius flavus colonies
3 Lasius niger colonies
1 Camponotus ligniperda colony

My personal favourites in terms of enjoyment to watch are the Pheidologeton diversus, i love watching them carry whole insects about into their nests.

The Myrmecia gulosa are also quite funny, they have great eyesight and if any are at the surface when i walk past their formicarium they immediatly look up and follow you around the room or charge at the glass! although expensive these ants are relatively easy to keep, i keep them at just above room temp. i feed them fresh meat, insects for the larvae and honeywater for the adults + queen, the queen of these ants is quite active and very quick + aggressive. and i leave a small bowl of water in the formicarium for them.

Watching the Messor move seeds about is also quite interesting, these ants move relatively slow unless panicked and sometime seem a bit clumbsy but are a fairly easy to keep ant,

The Camponotus have started to get lazy so i am preparing them for their winter sleep, in the last week they have cut down their activity drastically!

most people have kept Lasius niger or flavus at some point but if anyone has any special tips on keeping them better then feel free to let everybody know!.

[Scàth-Siorrai]

I have:
1 Formica sanguinea colony (3 queens and 120 fusca/cunicularia/sanguinea workers)
1 Tetramorium caespitum colony (queen and about 40 workers)
1 Pheidole pallidula (queen and 30 workers)
1 Tapinoma erraticum
3 Messor barbarus queens

EDIT2

[antman]

i have these species: C. herculeanus, L. niger, L. flavus, L. emerginatus, L. rabaudi, T. caespitum, F. fusca, F. rufibarbis, F. sanguinea, P. pallidula, M. barbarus, C. scutellaris, S. fugax

[Quézac]

I have
Componotus ligniperda 1 queen and 40 workers
Pheidole pallidula 1 queen 10 workers
Messor barbarus 1 queen and 60 workers and 3 queen alone
Lasius Flavus 40 queen alone
Solenopsis fugax 6 queen and 10 workers
Apheanogaster senilis 1 queen and 3 workers
Formica 3 queen
Tapinoma erraticum 1 queen and 20 workers
Tetramorium 1 queen and 50 workers
Myrmica rubra 3 queen 500 workers
" rugulosa 1 queen and 10 workers
" sacribondis 1 queen and 10 workers
Componotus lateralis 1 queen and 16 workers
Crematogaster scutellaris 1 queen and 10 workers
Lasius niger
componotus cruentatus
Plagilepsis pygmea(something like this)1 queen and 500 workers

As you can see it is only a young colony.
a+

[ralphdrake]

Guess what I have no ant colonies