ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Andrew]

If i have Pogonomymrex and Lasuis neoniger sharing a basin, would that be alright.

[miszt]

I dont know the specifics of these species, but I would not expect them to stay comfortable with one anothers presence for very long, the problem is that in the wild, there is a HUGE amount of food, and often ants can live side by side with minimal conflict, in captivity however, food levels are much lower, and one (Pogono I expect) will assert its dominance on a regular basis, and possibly even raid and destroy the other nest

[JimmyVe]

You can keep some species together, but it is always to give them different farms.

[Andrew]

But would they fight each other. It would be the same of Messor Barbarus and Lasius Niger.

[tail__]

All species you talk about are agressive and territorial, they will fight for sure, and only one colony will remain. You will have some chance with some less agressive species, but even this can be difficult in small territory. Actually the food isn't real problem, ants in formicarium are very well fed and don't need to work so hard for food as the ants in nature. But every ant colony likes to have it's own territory, and even the smallest ant territories are much bigger than a typical arena. This can lead to territorial conflicts even if the food will be abundant.

[Andrew]

Ok, how large does a arena have to be?

[JimmyVe]

Depending on the species. For most species you can not make the arena (out world) large enough like they would have in nature.

[miszt]

All species you talk about are agressive and territorial, they will fight for sure, and only one colony will remain. You will have some chance with some less agressive species, but even this can be difficult in small territory. Actually the food isn't real problem, ants in formicarium are very well fed and don't need to work so hard for food as the ants in nature. But every ant colony likes to have it's own territory, and even the smallest ant territories are much bigger than a typical arena. This can lead to territorial conflicts even if the food will be abundant.

nope, compared to a wild colony, captive colonies are very under fed, in the wild you can find Lasius niger, flavus & Myrmica spec with nests less than 1m apart, in Africa there where 3 diffrent Ponera, Odo & Crematogastor living inside one wall, they are all very aggressive species, but because they have enough food they do not have to remove any competition, you still get domination behaviour, but not in the same way. Its all about food, the only reason that ants keep their territory is so they have access to all the food

[damondeionno]

Mizt, the situation you talk about does occur in tropical environments, but I don't think it's just about food, it's also about type of food. In tropical environments there are many more species and many of these species are specially adapted in terms of their lifestyle and focus on certain food types. This is why there is less conflict.

2 species that do coexist very close to one another in the UK and L. flavus and L. niger. This is because the flavus are almost entirely subteranean. The niger forage on the surface, even over the top of flavus nests, while the flavus cultivate aphids on the roots of grasses.

[Andrew]

ok, what if i used a container for their outworld?

[damondeionno]

Andrew, I don't mean to be rude, but mixing species really isn't a great idea in the vast majority of cases. I'd give up on it if I were you.

[Andrew]

i kinda gave up the idea of mixing the two species. I am asking if i used a different outworld, how large would it have to be?

[damondeionno]

It would depend on the species, but for species with relatively small territories, 20 m2. Obviously this would increase with faster moving, more aggressive or more adventurous species. Don't forget that most enclosed environments will not allow ants to spread out in all directions and so they will probably travel further from the nest as a result.

[mpir]

The other day I came accross something very interesting. I was outside and I found some picnic place where there was a circle of stones that people put there and burn fire inside it.

I moved one rock an found some small Temnothorax -like species. I observed them for a while and just out of curiosity I moved the second stone in the ring not expecting to find anything. To my surprise a bigger specie of some Formica ants was living there. I then turned some other stones and to my great surprised I found a colony of C. ligniperda (first time I found them in the wild). What really amazed me was that all this different colonies were living so close together. The ring of stones was smaller then one meter in diameter. Too bad I didn't have my camera with me.

[SteveUK28]

you could always go back n get some pics for us