ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Antagoniser]

[Antagoniser]

Hello everyone, just wondering if any of you have ever been tempted to smuggle a queen ant back home with you from your holiday overseas.

I certainly have been tempted many times. Would a queen even survive the transit overseas inside a suitcase full of clothes?

We've all heard stories of insects and various other animals sneaking into peoples luggage and going home with them be it Black widow spiders, Deadly Scorpions or just run of the mill Cockroaches.

Can customs detect a single test tubed queen inside your suitcase and would they be bothered to poke their nose inside your luggage to take a look inside.

Is their a possibility of jail time or prosecution for a single ant.
Let me know what you guys think Right or Wrong.

[Simon14601]

Don't smuggle beceause that's not right.

[baumarkthammer]

Funny thing is that the water in the testing tubes would be a bigger problem in a plane than the ants.
Ants and other insects that are not endangered are kind of a grey area. In some countries it is strictly forbidden to take out any organic matter, for example Australia or USA.
However within europe for example the law is not that strict.

The problem is rahter in your choice of words: Smuggling implies a kind of illegal action.
When you take non-endangered species from one European country to another you will not have any problem. Outside of europe you will have to look into the specific laws.

Other than that: No, queens do not survive very long without moiture and smuggling ants does not really pay off in places where it is really illegal you should definetly not risk it, the fines can be very high.

Regards
Kaj

[Antagoniser]

Hi guys, I bit the bullet yesterday and decided to pack my ant colonies inside my suitcase and take them home from Cambodia to London.

Firstly I insulated the test-tube nests with a thick layer of cotton wool and then I surrounded this with parcel tape leaving only the nest entrance exposed.
They were then put inside my inner coat pocket and the coat was sandwiched in between a pile of clothes on either side.

We went on a three hour flight from Phnom Penh to Kuala Lumpur followed by a massive fourteen hour flight from Kuala Lumpur to London Heathrow.

The temperature outside the plane during transit was -60 Celsius..

I was quite pessimistic about their survival chances so as soon as I got home I removed the test-tube ants from their cotton wool tombs.

To my astonishment the Queens were still alive although the test-tubes were Icy to the touch.

I feel extremely lucky that my Solenopsis geminata queens Survived the transit.

I will update the colonies progress in a weeks time to check for casualties.

[trailandstreet]

It's a popular misconseption, that the pressure and temperature in the luggage area of a plane is much different from this in the passengers area. Of course, if the way from and to the aircraft, it is mostly outside of buildings, so in the current conditions it cools down.

[GvG]

Were they in standard testtube setups?

[Antagoniser]

"It's a popular misconseption, that the pressure and temperature in the luggage area of a plane is much different from this in the passengers area. Of course, if the way from and to the aircraft, it is mostly outside of buildings, so in the current conditions it cools down."

Thank you for clarifying the temperature of the cargo hold trailandstreet. It was hard to find any solid information on the web.

"Were they in standard testtube setups?"

Yes the colonies were in standard test tubes with cotton wool taped to the outside of the test tube for extra insulation.

[derameisige]

There are countries where it is not recommended to smuggle ants and other organisms, neither out nor in:

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