# Polyergus ants



## Swipht

Was wondering if anyone has seen any of these ants floating around. They enslave the babbies, and eggs of other ant collonies. Think they'd be fun to keep, and watch them raid other ant farms.


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## Hypoponera

I have seen a couple raiding parties over the years. Alas, I can find no record of the genus in Texas. Odd to say the least. But, if you don't mind travelling, there are two species found in New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. So while I can not find records of them in TX, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they do exist in North and West Tx.

The bad news is that you will have to go collect you own ants! Not only are these ants rare, but there are federal laws against shipping ants. It is legal to send ONLY workers. You mat not ship queens or brood. And the workers behaviour is "abnormal" without the queens and brood present.


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## robo mantis

I have been keep ants for a very long time and you WILL NOT find someone selling a slave maker ant colony. I guarantee it! The only way you could get one is to catch one that's around your house (probably will end up being a different species but same effect.) I would recommend doing a lot of research before keeping ants. It's a lot more complex than everybody thinks it is.


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## Hypoponera

Hey Robo,

How long have you been keeping ants? I started seriously in 2001. My best results were with the many _Pogonomyrmex_ sp found here. The only colony I have at the moment is _Forelius pruinosus_. I've had it going since Nov 2002. I found an entire colony under a patio block.

The only ants I remember from Northern Indiana were _Camponotus_ sp and _Prenolepis imparis_. Have you ever tried _P. imparis_? That is a species I have been hunting for. It exists here, but is quite rare. And since it doesn't seem to like warm weather, it is only seen in very early spring and early winter here.


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## robo mantis

I have been keeping ants for about 2-3 years. I have such a biodiversity of ants up here!!! It's unbelieveable!!!! P. imparis is my favorite species!!! I have i think 8 colonies. Waiting for this years flight. I'm currently keeping formica (like 5 different types), a slavemaker ant colony that i boosted from wild pupa; and they just came out of hybernation and i fed her my protein food so i hope she lays, she is a slavemaker of formica, lasius neoniger, lasius flavus, componotus penn, some smaller camponotus, lasius alienous, acorn ants, pheidole, trying to start a myrmica queen, tetremorium, and brachomerex. I think there is more but can't remember! haha! The only species i can never catch is aphenogaster!!! Last year i saw one on my schools roof from the library!! Then another landed on our car as we were driving! Oh i also am starting a citronella ant colony (i think lasius claviger).


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## Hypoponera

Very cool list of ants you've got there!! That is one thing I like about ants over mantids, you can have several colonies and still use less space, (and money!!).

Looks like you have the same _Polyergus_ species in IN as we have down here in NM. You have either _P. breviceps _or _P. lucidus_. Very cool no matter which. How do you provide brood for them. Do you simply provide brood from some of your other colonies or do you need to find wild brood? And what is the "protein food" you mentioned? That could prove very useful for my next Pogo colony.

If your _Tetramorium_ queen is fertile, she should be easy to get going. Chances are that you have _T. caespitum _and it is a tough species to kill. I've tried! So a colony should be easy to get started and equally easy to maintain.

A "citronella ant" colony would be cool. Is it _Lasius_ or maybe a species of _Acanthomyops_? There are species in both genera that produce that wonderful smell. I've tried a couple queens of _Acanthomyops_ and failed. Later I discovered that the ones in my yard are a social parasite of _Lasius sp_. Since I don't have a colony of _Lasius_, I have no chance with the _Acanthomyops_. But one day ....

Where in IN are you? My mother lives in a Kouts. Its a small farm town just South of Valparaiso. By chance are you anywhere near there? If so, I'd be most interested in buying one of your smaller _P. imparis _colonies!!


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## robo mantis

At the point of time i tried to start the slavemaker colony i had no formica :huh: So i thought up a plan!! I put a rock on the formica hills by me and behold!! They nested under it, and they even brought all the pupa up!!! So i snagged about 20. and gave them to the parasite queen and she went nuts!!! She piled them up and was constantly cleaning them!! It was pretty cute. Then she started getting fat (very good sign!!) but no eggs so i hybernated them in hopes of getting eggs. I just took them out about 2 days ago but i'm going to give them a few weeks. I figured out the ingenious food from a british blog about a year or 2 ago. I made a youtube video on how to make it.

 . I have on separate queen tetremorium and one with a tiny colony but can't get them to move to a new tube &lt;_&lt; . Lasius in general a hard to ID so its difficult to tell what the parasite is. I know it produces a citronella odor because i purposly scared her haha! I am about an hour or 2 north of valpo i think. So i'm not that far! I'm going to something called The Bug Bowl in Purdue Layfayette. Thats not to far. I could probably mail it in their local area and it will get there even faster haha! Whatever works!


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## Hypoponera

Thanks for the link! Very useful video. I will try it out on the colony I currently have. But I will cut down the water some :lol: . I looked at a few of your other vids. Are those Lasius in your winter/war vid? How cold was it?

Best of luck with your slave-maker queen! Let me know how it works out. Have the pupa hatched out yet? If any do, it will probably prompt the queen to start laying. It really doesn't take many workers to get a queen going.

Most of my family on my mother side live in Valpo. Not too many people I've met have even heard of Valpo. Let me get a hold of my mother. She is planning a trip down to visit in May. Maybe I can get her to swing over and pick up a colony of you _P. imparis _on her way. How much do you want for one? PM me with the details!! Would love to get one. With as cold as my bug room is, they might even stay active all year long.


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## robo mantis

Your Welcome!! Yeah i did add too much water  haha the food works really good!! Winter ant/false honeypot = P. imparis those are just the common names!!! So those were two winter ant colonies fighting over a blob of honey i put on the ground :-D It was in the fall and i would say somewhere between 35-45 they were stocking up for winter. They are the most active in the cold but when the ground freezes and snow piles up they can't forage. They hybernate in the summer haha it's the weirdest hybernation i've ever heard of but it's definatly true!!!! I didn't hybernate them but they decided they wanted to lay!!! That's hard to get in a captive winter ant colony aka P. imparis!! My winter ants stay active at room temp and they are going good!

All the workers are out of the cocoons and i fed them and put them in hybernation a couple of months ago. I just took them out! :-D I'm going to give them a couple of weeks to get their act together!

Does your mother live around Bass Lake? My mom knows people that live there and we were going to go on vacation there a long time ago.


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## Hypoponera

Good to hear that they stay active at room temp. My bug room stays at 68-70 degrees year round. I normally have to provide heat pads to my native ant colonies, even in summer! The mantids get several heat lamps as well.

Are the worker slaves out and about yet? Can you tell how many survived the winter sleep? Can you see the queen? Is she still plump? Has she laid any eggs yet?


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## robo mantis

She hasn't layed eggs as of yesterday. So no slave maker workers yet. Most survived i think maybe 2 or 3 died out of 20. I'm waiting on the first batch of eggs.


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## Hypoponera

You may need to add additional brood to give the workers something to play with :lol:


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## robo mantis

Yeah thats probably what i'm going to do when they colonies bring their brood up.


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## Swipht

I thought my thread had died. Glad to see there are a couple people interested in ants. What kind of slavemakers do you have? So far the only ants I've seen around my house are these tiny little black ones. Pretty common looking, bet they're harvester ants.


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## robo mantis

Slace makers are so hard to ID i tried looking it up but i don't think it has been studied. Your ants are probably tetramorium.


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## Hypoponera

Hey Swipht,

Any chance you can post a clear photo of your ants? If not, can you get a good, close up view and describe the workers? Does it have one or two nodes? Small, black, and common-looking describes about 25 different species of common ants here in New Mexico. I wouldn't be surprised to find it describes even more in Texas.


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## Swipht

Sadly I don't have a way to take a picture of the ants that infest my bathroom. Since they're rather boring looking, and tiny I don't have much of an interest to keep them.

Perhaps you'd be interested in selling me some ants, Robo.


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## robo mantis

I don't sell ants. You definatly have a good amount of ants around you. You should try catching them.


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## Swipht

That's to bad. I went out side and looked around a bit, and I found some tiny red ones with black butts. Even smaller then the black ones running around in my bathroom. The workers are the size of pin heads. I gave them some sugar water to try to draw them out. Dug a little bit with a plastic spoon, and didn't really see a queen running around.


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## Hypoponera

Your best bet is going to be to catch a freshly mated queen while she is running around on the surface of the ground. Then you can just scoop her up and place her in a tank full of dirt. Start looking now as some species start swarming in early spring while others start in early summer.

Digging an established colony out is possible, but not very practical. As you dig, the ants simply move the queen and brood down deeper. You would need to use a full size spade not a plastic spoon!

Chances are you have 2 seperate species of Pyramid Ant. Black Pyramids in the bathroom and Red &amp; Black pyramids outside. Both actually do make very interesting "pets".

A good source of ant info for you might be the Ant Farm:

http://antfarm.yuku.com/


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## Swipht

Are they out around sundown? I wont get off work until about then. All I have around work is under brush... No logs or rocks to flip over and look under. I have a wooded area by my apartment I could look at.


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## Swipht

well I manadged to catch some ants, even snag a few eggs from them... I lifted up a rock and all the workers were scrambling to move them. doubt I got the queen though, since I just scooped a bunch up.


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## robo mantis

Catching some workers and brood definatly isn't worth it. You definatly during the summer will see queens at dusk. A lot of species fly late afternoon then land at dusk. To be honest i'm very against dirt setups! I use testtubes, fill then halfway with water, take a cotton ball and shove it down there till it is about halfway in the water so the cotton is wet, then catch a queen and throw her in, and finally plug up the open end with a cotton ball so she won't escape.


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## Hypoponera

Ah, see? We are all different. I like the dirt set-ups myself. But that's because I like watching them excavate and fill in tunnels over time.


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## robo mantis

With dirt setups some people lose colonies, some people get mites (like i had mites kill a citronella ant colony i captured.) and when they are in the tunnels most of them make dark rooms in the middle so you can't see.


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## Swipht

Dang it! Why can't I have citronela ants around me? I'd love to put those whitish ants in black sand. That'd look really cool. Cotton balls? They can tunnel threw wet cotton balls?


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## robo mantis

Citronella ants are near impossible to start but i'm trying one. You have whitish ants??? They might have just hatched. Most of the colonies love the cotton ball and sit on it. Some colonies get creative and start building little cotton mounds. I almost never have ants tunnel into cotton they might dig an indent and stuff but the only time i have seen them dig through is when the water was either gone or almost gone.


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## robo mantis

Here is the long awaited for video of my slavemaker ant colony. This is them feeding the queen.


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## robo mantis

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY SLAVE MAKER QUEEN LAYED ABOUT 8 EGGS!!!!!


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## Katnapper

robo mantis said:


> Here is the long awaited for video of my slavemaker ant colony. This is them feeding the queen.


Interesting, Robomantis...  I enjoyed the video! In fact I was wishing it was longer, lol.  

Congrats on her laying eggs for you!


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## robo mantis

Thanks!!! I wish the video was longer too!! I actually kept filming and thats the exact time i ran out of memory!!! I didn't stop the video my camera did  haha at least i got the video!!!!


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## Hypoponera

8 eggs? Very cool indeed!! Now you need to start planning where to get new pupa for the work force. Those slaver "workers" ain't too good at actually doing any real work.


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## robo mantis

Yes. She actually layed more now!!!! They have a decent size cluster!!!!


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## ArkBlu[email protected]

Hay there I read all of your ant updates cool about your eggs, now I don't keep ants but I have allways watched them over the years, now in Colo we have fire ant [ 1/8 of inch all red] that are biger then the ones I'v found in tex also called fire ants [1/16 of inch or so also red], now the ones in tex are the same size as what I'v grown up calling suger ants also red 1/16 inch about do you know what the name of this common ant?, by the way Im in the planes not the foot hills or Mt's.


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## robo mantis

They could be Argentine ants. They could also be thief ants or pharaoh ants.


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## Hypoponera

You will need to provide a photo of your "fire ants". Ants are very hard to ID correctly even with the ant in front of me!

I have not been able to locate any mention of actual fire ants, (_Solinopsis sp_), in CO. However, you should have no trouble finding the much larger harvester ants, (_Pogonomymex sp_).

Several species of Pogos can be found in CO. And yes, they have a very nasty sting! I think it is much more potent then any fire ant sting.


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## [email protected]

Hypoponera said:


> You will need to provide a photo of your "fire ants". Ants are very hard to ID correctly even with the ant in front of me! I have not been able to locate any mention of actual fire ants, (_Solinopsis sp_), in CO. However, you should have no trouble finding the much larger harvester ants, (_Pogonomymex sp_).
> 
> Several species of Pogos can be found in CO. And yes, they have a very nasty sting! I think it is much more potent then any fire ant sting.


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## [email protected]

Ok I will try to find to find the fire ant that are around me for a pic, now do you know what kind of ant the small red common ant's that I grow up calling sugar ants.

danny


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## Hypoponera

Again, I would need to see the ants to give you a positive ID. But red imported fire ants, (RIFA, _Solinopsis invicta_), are very common in TX. However, there are many other ants that could fit the discription as well. There's also at least one species of native fire ants, (_Solinopsis xyloni_), there as well. Most people call any stinging ant a fire ant which makes it hard to guess which species you might have seen.

If all else fails, PM me for my mailing address and you can mail me the ants to ID. While I don't have keys for CO, I do for NM, TX and NV. So I should be able to give you a good idea of what species you are dealing with.


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