ANTSTORE World of Ants

[ProXi]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering.
Are there Messor species who doenst need high temperatures?
Cause at home, the other people in my house don't like it when keep the heating on all day.

[baumarkthammer]

Hello,

just "room temperature" isn´t a very precise information. How warm do you have it in your room?

Most Messor species love heat and won´t grow very good in the cold.
However since I guess that your room temperature will be around 20-21°C it would be enough to use a normal desk lamp for heating with a normal 40W light bulb. This way you can produce enough heat and it doesn´t burn much energy.

[ProXi]

Thank you for your fast reaction.
Well it's more about 18-20 °C
In the winter it is cooler when there is nobody at home or when we are sleeping.

The problem is that my other roommates don't like it when I keep a lamp or an heating mat on when there's nobody at home.
No only because of the energy issue but also because they are affraid of fire, when somethings goes wrong with the heating mat for example.

[Ukantzz]

There is 1 type of Messor that can tolerate room temperature and that's Messor cf. wasmanni, look on southern eurapean species and scroll down to messor and you'll find it. I tried this species once and left the queen in my room undisturbed but never laid eggs, and shortly after died.

[baumarkthammer]

@Ukantzz, no, Messor wasmanni lives aside Messor capitatus very often. Though they differ in habitat a little most of the time. But I wouldn´t say that Messor wasmanni lives in cooler regions.
Maybe you didn´t hibernate your queen? She only lays eggs after hibernation since, like all the Messor spp. which swarm late in the year and Messor wasmanni swarms in the fall.

@ProXi, you could put your basin up in such a way that it faces the sunlight from your window or something like that. Another way to improve the temperature would be not to put them directly on your table but to put them on polystyrene ( I think it is called that way in English) so that the basin looses less temperature.