There are sooo much info about Pogos on the net so i´m going to focus on good ways to keep them (how i do).
First, these ants have a potent sting and can get up to 10.000 ants in a few years (Pogonomyrmex rugosus). With that said, build the Pogo-formicarium big and escape safe.
Allso make sure that the formicarium is easy to clean because there will be a lot of garbage in the end of the week.
Here is my latest formicarium and a "how to" when i made it (sorry Swedish only):
Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbarThe Pogos like it dry but it´s good to have a sorce of water and keep the y-tong nest moist. I try to keep the teperature 25C-28C. The Pogos are a desert-ant but not like a Sahara-desert more like how it looks in Arizona.
Needless to say (i do it anyway) they are harvesterants. That meens that they like/needs seeds to prosper. I feed mine small birdseeds that you buy in the petstore.
You can succesfully allso feed them any plantseeds that you can find your self ex dandelions (the white ball that is fun when you are a child).
They allso need protein. Any dead bug will do. I keep small crickets in the fridge and feed them every now and then.
Pogos are (my own experience) the WORST hunter ever. They can´t even kill a half dead mosquito..no lie. Thats why i serve the ants dead bugs only.
A nother weird thing is that if there somewere in the formicarium is a small drop of water/honey/? you can be sure that with in five minutes there will be an struggling ant in that drop. Don´t get me started what will happen if there was a "plate" with water. Mass suicide...
Why would you want to have this ant then? First, they are a famous ant. When a character in a Western movie is staked out over an ant mound, the victim is probably being offered to the Pogonomyrmex. The Aztecs credit these ants with the gift of corn/maize to humanity, and it would be hard to imagine a more important aspect of American Indian culture.
The Pogos dig like a dog with their front legs..looks funny.
They are "big" ...1cm
They dont climb verry well..escapesafe.
The Pogonomyrmex rugosus are a "hard" ant. They don´t die that easy.
Now the weird info.
When the nest was young and there were only 10-15 workers (first and second generation) i used test tubes to keep the food for my ants, seeds in one and frozen crickets in the other.
Every time it was time to feed the ants i tapped the end of the test tube to get the right amount of food for the ants.
After a month or so..every time i tapped that test tube the ants swarmed out and started to search the foraging aria.
I think that the sound-waves triggered that behavior..They did not do that in the beginning (start up) of the nest and they don't do it now (1-2 generation are now dead). I feed them more food now and not with a test tube. I´v tryed tapping a test tube now but they ignore me big time..
Whiu..more info will come soon...