ANTSTORE World of Ants

[amrik singh]

I have a special interest for the Solenopsis (as also for the Tetramorium )because they represent a summit of ant evolution without specialization.
They are generalists who keep their evolution potential intact wile at the same time been very successful and dominant .
The Solenopsis have been divided in different sub genus in the past between thief ants and fire ants but in Oceania and America there is
a continuity of species between the thief ants and the most characteristic fire ants .
Typical thief ants like Solenopsis fugax can feed on a large variety of food but when competing with dominant ant species it specialized in subterranean way of life plundering their brood and doing so become even more successful .
A few months ago I order two queens of Solenopsis fugax to try to rise two colony's . I did try before but without success : The queens were dying before or soon after the birth of the first workers. One queens have now a few bigger larvae and pupae ,the other only small larvae. Soon after I found a incipient colony to buy : One queen with a few first workers .These first workers are extremely small and yellow ,(the second generation workers are quite bigger and light brown). I learned the hard way that the killer for Solenopsis fugax incipient colonies is insufficient humidity so this time I do not warm the test tubes and for the small colony I pulled the plug from the test tube just enough for the ants to go in and out and soon they adapt the entrance size and closed the rest of the opening with sand-loam and every day I poored some water drops on the cotton plug . The room temperature is 20°c to 22°c at night and 22°c to 24°c during the day , that's not quite warm enough but I did read that they are not very temperature sensitive . The development of these Solenopsis fugax colonies is very very slow at the beginning .

[amrik singh]

The colony of Solenopsis fugax is growing very slowly but steadily after three months or so .The first dwarf workers are very fragile , one have drowned in a droplet of water that I splashed by accident and one I crushed by accident to wile removing food leftover . I feed them the cut heads and front thorax of Tenebrion pupae and a droplet of honneywater every three days or so .
These ants have show no intention to move to the plaster nest yet .

[amrik singh]

In the test tube I can see the worker pupae and larvae at different stages of development and workers of the second generation bigger and light brown. The queen abdomen is moderately dilated . It is still the first generation workers who go out to take food.

[amrik singh]

Hello again,
These ants been fragile at the early stage of colony foundation and the long time it take at the foundation stage
to arrive at a colony size that make them more resistant limit the chances of success for a single queen to establish a new colony.
The colony is now growing slowly but still in the tube without any move to the plaster nest.
One of the queens have now her first workers but I can't see anything because they establish themselves in the sand at the entrance of the test tube. The other queen is still alive but seems to have eaten her brood so it goes to nothing.

[amrik singh]

I did find a very nice and interesting Russian site that have a very interesting part with beautiful pictures on Solenopsis fugax
in formicarium , it is in Russian written with Cyrillic alphabet but you can use google translate : antclub.org

[amrik singh]

Of the two queens one is successful having a few workers but it is still to early to claim victory .
These first workers are so small that they are at the limit of the microscopic (specially when the observer is more than 40 years old ) .
I make the mistake to use sand/loam mix to cover the arena and nest ground so these very small yellow/light brown ants are
virtually invisible on this rough yellow-beige surface.

[amrik singh]

The incipient colony that I did buy in december is growing steadily having tens of workers and brood and the queen is permanently physogastric so the colony is now succesfuly establish (but they are still in the test tube ).

[amrik singh]

Hi,
I was gone for about 24 hours and when I come back yesterday evening it was the complete disaster: A massive brake-out
of the Tetramorium sp. E invaded the arenas of both Solenopsis colony's , were inside the test-tubes and plaster nests .There were no trace left of the Solenopsis . I never thought that it can happened specially with the colony that had already between 60 and 80 workers . The Solenopsis had perfectly close the test tube space between the cotton plug and tube living only a very small hole for the workers passage. The Tetramorium's tunneled in the sand-loam like nothing and destroyed everything.