The Consult-ant – Page 6 – Wild About Ants

April 2, 2010April 2, 2010

Another Question About Ants

I have an ant question!

I live in Arkansas and caught a colony of rather large ants. There
about the size of carpenter ants but are an orange color with dark
brown on the abdomen and head, usually I find them under large rocks,
I was curious as to what kind of ant they are and also that I have
them in the new gel type of ant farm which they seem to be doing
rather well they have a few tunnels and chambers but they seem to be
staying out of them.

Will they eventually move into them or should I get a larger container
for them?

I also have found some species of ant in the woods that look every
similar to harvester ants but 1/2 the size and they don’t sting, last
time I tried to colonize that species in the gel they never dug…iare
there just some ants that would rather make a nest in an abandoned nest
then dig there own?

I think your idea to try to figure out what kinds of ants you have is a good one. How you should treat them, what to feed them and what to expect all depend on what kind you have. Unfortunately I can’t tell what kind they are only from your description.

Here are some things you can do:

Take a good look at your ants and then go on the Internet and check ant websites for photographs. One great place to find descriptions and photographs of ants is antweb.org. Under the first tab labeled “bioregions” scroll down to nearctic. You will find lists of ants from nearby states, for example Alabama.

Or if you have a camera that can take close-up photographs, try to take some. The Ant Farm and Myrmecology Forum has experts that might be able to help you. Be sure to read their rules about posting first and check the ant FAQ’s.

If you post photos on a blog or website, send me a link and I’ll see if I recognize them. Some of the characteristics used to tell ants apart include things like number of segments in the antennae, etc. It really helps to have the photos as close and as clear as you can make them.

As for the gel ant farms, I have found that certain ants will tunnel and other won’t. If you are interested in keeping ants, and it sounds like you are, you might want to check into some of the more traditional ant farms that are designed for long term use. Here’s one link to building artificial ant nests. The forum I mentioned above also has a lot of good information.

Let me know if you post some photographs and happy anting!

(Note: As I mentioned previously, I have been the “Consult-Ant” on the Leaping from the Box website. I answer questions about ants and ant farms. From now on I will post the answers here, and when Karen has time she will also post the answers on her site.)

April 2, 2010July 7, 2011

Ant Eggs Versus Pupae

Question:

Sorry I could not find the question box, but me and my cousin were digging through a ant hole and we found ant eggs. What do they need to grow? Sunlight, coldness, what kind of environment can they live in?

Thanks!
Alexis

Dear Alexis,

The first question I have for you is: did you collect ant eggs or ant pupae? The second question is: did you collect worker ants too?

Ant eggs are tiny (much smaller than worker ants), white, shiny and oval.

ant-eggs

You can see a pile of ant eggs in this photograph in the middle and a little to the left.

Ant pupae are as large or even larger than worker ants and often have a beige silken sac around them.

ant-pupae

They also have a black dot at the end.

If you have eggs, then you will really need worker ants to take care of them. The larvae that hatch from the eggs will need workers to feed them, clean them etc. The larvae are helpless. I have a post about ant larvae, if you’d like to learn more. And just so you know, there is a chance the workers will eat the eggs.

If you have pupae, they could become worker ants. Again, they will do better if there are some worker ants to take care of them. Without a queen, they will not live as long as they would in nature.

In their nest under the ground, the ants normally grow up in dark, moist and relatively moderate temperatures.

I am glad you are interested in ants. Let me know whether you have eggs or pupae.

April 1, 2010April 1, 2010

Ant Color Vision

Question:

I keep companotus herculeanus (carpinter ants) [Camponotus herculeanus carpenter ants] i’ve got the queen to nest in a bit of rotton wood in a hollow next to the glass i want to be able to look at the nest so other ant keepers have told me to put red film over the glass as ants can’t see red light but some say they can do you know? if not do you lnow how to test if they can.thanks . …MARK

Thanks for the great question, Mark. Looking for the answer led to some cool information about ant vision.

The short answer is keeping ants in dark red light is still a good way to observe them under low light intensities. But there is evidence that ants may be able to see red, especially scarlet red, under certain conditions.

History
The famous bee biologist, Karl von Frisch, reported early in the 20th century that honey bees could see color. In fact, he was able to establish that the bees could see blue, yellow and green, as well as ultraviolet and polarized light (which we can’t see). Honey bees did not appear to be able to see red.

Because ants and bees are closely related, everyone assumed their vision was similar.

However, the eyes of different species of ants vary in size and complexity. For example, the compound eyes of the worker ants of your species, Camponotus herculeanus, are moderate in size. Notice the three small, shiny ocelli at the top of the head. Those are used for vision as well.

Camponotus_herculeanus_head_2 — Camponotus herculeanus Photographer: April Nobile Date Uploaded: 11/30/2006 Copyright: Copyright AntWeb.org, 2000-2009. Licensing: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 (cc-by-sa-3.0) Creative Commons License

In contrast, the workers of Gigantiops destructor have huge eyes.

Recently scientists have begun to check ants’ ability to see colors, as well as learn more about how their eyes work.

In 2004, Deprickere, Fresneau and Deneubourg found that worker Lasius niger ants tending brood behaved differently in response to red light, as compared to foraging workers. Foraging workers were less likely to aggregate (clump together) when exposed to red light in contrast to darkness, whereas workers tending brood showed no differences in aggregation. These results suggested some sort of ability to detect red light.

By doing choice tests (operant conditioning) with workers of Myrmica sabuleti in 2007, Marie-Claire Cammaerts was able to find that ants were slightly sensitive to red at high light intensity (10,000 lux), but not at low light intensity (600 lux). There seemed to be differences between scarlet red (which has a shorter wavelength) and dark red. Dark red was not detected at either intensity.

The conclusion I make is that the darker the red and the lower the intensity of light, the less the chance that ants can detect it.

If you are curious to find out more, you can always do your own experiments. Figure out some measure of behavior, such how many worker ants bunch up together (aggregate), and then see how it changes under different types of light.

Good luck, and let me know what happens.

For more information on ant vision “see:”

Roberto Keller at the American Museum of Natural History has an excellent overview of ant vision at Homology Weekly: Compound Eyes.

Marie-Claire Cammaerts. 2007. Colour vision in the ant Myrmica sabuleti Meinert, 1861 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Myrmecological News 10: 41-50 available at myrmecologicalnews.org/cms/images/pdf/…/mn10_41-50_non-printable.pdf as a non printable .pdf file.

Stephanie Depickere, Dominique Fresneau, Jean-Louis Deneubourg, The influence of red light on the aggregation of two castes of the ant, Lasius niger, Journal of Insect Physiology, Volume 50, Issue 7, July 2004, Pages 629-635.

Robert Kretz. 1979. A behavioural analysis of colour vision in the ant Cataglyphis bicolor (Formicidae, Hymenoptera). J. Comp. Physiol. 131: 217-233.

Carlos Martinoya1, Susana Bloch, Dora F. Ventura and Niélsy M. Puglia. Spectral efficiency as measured by ERG in the ant (Atta sexdens rubropilosa). Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology
Volume 104, Number 2 / June, 1975: 205-210.

March 18, 2010March 18, 2010

Ant Farm Question About Kits

Question:

I am really excited about getting an ant queen but am not sure if my ant farm would work. I live in New York and am waiting for ant swarms and hope to get a black ant queen. They build dirt mounds and my kit is plaster and has no dirt would they mind? My ant farm is 10 inches wide and 7 inches tall and is part of a brand called ecosystem its called ant mines and is attached to another colony called Mayan ant invasion. Would my hive work? Sincerely, Worried Mike

Dear Mike,

I checked what your ant farm sets look like (see below to make sure I got the right ones.) They seem fine to get you started. The plaster is a system that ant scientists developed for studying ant colonies. Many ant species get along just fine without soil. In fact, adding soil makes it more likely that your ant farm will develop a mold or parasites that could make the ants sick, so they will do better without it.

At first the queen will not move around much, so you don’t need a big space. In fact, you will probably just need one of those kits at first. Once you have ants in the kits, be sure to check them often. Workers ants may chew at any weak spot in the plastic and try to escape. Where tubes join are favorite places to attack. Also, be sure to read all the instructions that come with your kits.

In New York you probably have a few weeks before you need to worry too much about catching a queen. Ants usually swarm once the weather gets warm enough to produce spring or summer thundershowers.

Hope this helps you worry less 🙂

-The Consult-Ant