ANTSTORE World of Ants

[highered]

I was considering maybe buying some Atta ants but would like more information first. What type of plants do they eat? Eg Do they eat any plants that grow in England or do you have to buy imported plants? If you feed them English plants isn't there a risk of them being exposed to bacteria they aren't used to and might not be able to cope with?
Their colour is dark orange-brown isn't it?
Thank you.

[Phasmid]

Acromyrmex will take most things found in your garden and I can't see why Atta would be fussier to the point of only accepting food native to their country of origin. Leaves are leaves and as long as it isn't a plant that has natural fungicides the ants should accept it.
Even if you got tropical plants to feed them it would be impossible to prevent bacteria in England from infecting the plants.
Their colour depends in the spec. eg. Atta cephalotes is red to red-brown and Atta sexdens is dark brown.

[McK]

Why Atta? Why is this species so popular these days?

[Phasmid]

Why Atta? Why is this species so popular these days?

Why would you ask this? Atta has always been popular, they are just hard to keep .
But I would recomend Acromyrmex first as they can be easily controlled and you can't go wrong if you've readup enough, but if you lose an Atta colony due to lack of experiance you will be gutted.
The trouble with leaf-cutter ants is that people always want to build elaborate setups that look good but go seriously wrong after a week. Acromyrmex is very tough and will last long enough until you find the perfect setup then you try with Atta as they tend not to be so forgiving, as many novices seem to be experiencing .

[McK]

Why would you ask this? Atta has always been popular, they are just hard to keep .

Yes, I know they've always been popular but everyone seems to be buying them too now.

[Zagone]

It's wierd about people making elaborate nests that look good but don't work, I've thought up and designed several farms for leaf-cutters that I'm positive would work, the only real problem is that I live in an apartment and my economy is tight, so I can't afford, nor do I have space for them.

[Phasmid]

You can design setups that looks like it should work fine in every way but you realy cannot know until you put them to the test, there is always something that needs sorting out which you only see once setup is built and "switched on" .
I'm not saying it's impossible to get a setup that looks good and works fine, I'm saying that, without experience, you will not get it right the first time you build it, you have to keep on adding on and taking away untill it works. That is why it is important to start with a hardy spec. so you can see what works and what dosen't .

[Zagone]

Ofcourse. I atleast base my designs off set-ups I've seen work.

[JimmyVe]

It impossible to prevent people from buying Atta species, but its a shame if they don't know what they are doing. The ants will die soon and you have lost a lot of money in a short time. So if you think you can handle them go ahead and keep us posted of your experience.