ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Bob]

[size=18][color=black] I am interested in acquiring/keeping/studying Ponera ants, the types in which the queen caste is absent. Does anyone here have any experience with keeping these ants? Did they breed sucessfully? Was there anyway to tell the gammergate(reproductive memeber apart)? How long did the colony live? Was it easy to keep? What is the best kind of formicarium to keep these ants in? (I've heard benton ones) Where might we obtain these ants? Any and every type of insight on these ants will be much appreciated. [/color][/size]

[sithmaster676]

i have no experience with this species but i believe that they are quite a difficult species to keep. like you say there is no queen and when the time comes to choosing a reproductive member the workers fight for dominance.
im not sure if you can buy these ants anywhere but have a look in different places
Sithmaser676

[Bob]

Where did you hear that they are difficult to keep? Difficult in which sense? Please do explain. I think there is a species of these ants available at buyants. http://www.antstore.net/shop/product_in ... nator.html

BTW You mentioned "different places". Do you know anyone else apart from buyants.com that sells ant colonies and/or queens?

[Skippy]

Hello Bob!

I think ,Ponera ants are very interest ,and also difficult to keep. There are very sensitive and it can be hard in nature to found - it freeze when it feel your coming

Harpegnathos venator is very nice ant ,like Myrmecia ant from Australia ,I also wanna to buy them .

Skippy

[sithmaster676]

hi bob
im afraid i don't know anywhere else that sells these ants but like Skippy said they can be very sensitive mainly to temperature, although this species would be great to keep because they constantly change there workers to queens so a colony could last for a very long time.
Sithmaster676

[Bob]

I'm not sure if the workers change to queens routinely. I have heard (and I could be wrong) that once the gamergate dies, the next larva to hatch into adulthood becomes the new gamergate (queen in acting) although your suggestion that one of the former workers turns into the gamergate opens up a new possibility. A good person to comment here would be someone who owns Ponerine ants. Can anyone ask Mr. Sebesta to contribute here? I would like to know if his colony has an active egg layer and if that egg layer has ever been replaced by another worker. Mr. Sebesta would also be a good individual to say here how fast his colony is breeding (if at all). Can anyone ask Mr. Sebesta to contribute here?

[JimmyVe]

Hmm. If I'm correct you are new to keeping ants. I'm sure this is not an ant species to start with. Some experience ant keepers i know did not succeed in keeping this species. I still think it is better to start with an easier species. If you like ants you need to make sure you are doing al to keep them alive. I'm not saying you can not but if you have zero experience I'm nut sure you can. These are expensive species to so if they die after a few days/weeks it is just a waist ants and money.

btw: If they queen dies the other workers fight to become the new queen.
and I'm sure M. Sebesta will read this and reply.

[Bob]

Actually I am not entirely new to keeping ants. I kept ants throughout my childhood and teen years and very successfully too. I just stopped after starting college but I'm ready to give it a try again. We used to have a lot of ponera ants in our area and even looking at them as I child, I became suspicious about them having a queen because they were already so large. So as a child I would think, ok how large could their queens be? I doubt if the queens can be any larger! My suspicions were confirmed when one rainy season I saw a ponerine ant which looked exactly like the ones you see year round except it had wings. I knew instantaneously then that the worker and reproductive caste was more or less the same in size and appearance. Anyways, why do you think people have difficultly keeping them? Do you think its hard to recreate their natural environment? Also you mentioned that if the reproductive worker dies, the remaining workers fight over becoming the next gamergate(queen). However do they also produce males at the time when the queen dies or do they produce males only once a during the rainy seasons like other ants? I would think if their queen dies during the non rainy season and another worker becomes queen, then it would need a male at that time to mate with. Am I right? So how do these ants fertilize a new queen if a new queen takes over at a time when there are no rains? Do they produce male ants right then? Or do they wait for the rains to come around before doing so?

[JimmyVe]

For that i'm not sure Bob, good question.

I think they will wait for swarming time, then let a male into the nest and fertilize the new queen.

[earlant]

Hi Bob,

Do you know that there is a large American ant forum?

Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar

If anybody, the guys there will be able to help you. Even some professional myrmecologists are active in that forum.
However, they will also tll you that importing foreign ants into the US is illegal and strictly forbidden.

In addition, with google asking for "Diacamma" you will easily find a lot of articles on life history etc., and also pictures of various Diacamma species.

Regards,
Earlant

[Bob]

Here is pic a user posted of Harpegnathos venator which is a type of queenless ponerine ant.

http://www.antstore.net/album_mod/uploa ... d1b71a.jpg

These ants are monomorphic which means the queen and workers look identical the only difference is the queen is mated while the remaining workers aren't hence the term 'gamergate' which means 'married worker'.
It would be great to hear from someone who has kept these types of ants. Hopefully Martin Sebesta can come and tell us more about their breeding habits and if the colony he had was breeding successfully in captivity through a 'gamergate'. I also believe these ants are hard to keep so if anyone has any information on keeping these types of ants, has kept them before or has known anyone who's kept them, please share your experiences here.

[mikemeritus]

i remember reading about these types of ants, iirc the sometimes do have designated "queens" for periods of time (or maybe just some species do this). unfortunately thats all i can remember.