Bay Area Ants

     Recently, I wrote up a care sheet for one of my favorite ants in my collection, Camponotus quercicola.  This is useful for providing information to friends, people who purchase a colony from me, and people I might trade them with. I thought I would post it in case anyone would like to see what it is like to care for a colony of ants. Scientific Name:  Camponotus quercicola Common Name: None Distribution:  Endemic to California Queen size:  16-19mm Worker size:  7-16mm Natural Habitat:  Oak trees native to CA Circadian Activity:  Primarily nocturnal Mating Flight:  First heatwave of spring, typically in March or April. Can be found later on in less abundance. All queens collected at night on live oak trees, in areas where nests have been found. There is a complete list of all species in the Ant Mating Chart:  http://www.formicult...t-mating-chart/ Queen Founding Method:  Fully Claustr...

     To the naked eye, the humble ant doesn't seem like much. It simply goes about it's business, foraging for little bits of food for the colony. But, as you might have learnt from previous posts, ants can be extremely sophisticated in their ways of life. A prime example of this is found in the behaviors of socially parasitic ants, or more importantly, their queen. What is a Social Parasite in the Ant World?      A socially parasitic queen ant is one of the more cunning and fierce queens out there. She will fly away from her nest, and mate similarly to any other ant colony's mating flight (more on mating flights here ). But instead of going down the semi-claustral, or fully-claustral path to colony founding, this queen takes a much more sinister path, the path of a social parasite. Colony Founding for Socially Parasitic Queens    The first step towards beginning a successful colony for a parasitic queen is to find a host colony to infiltrat...

     Last night, I ran into a pleasant surprise while checking up on my ants before I retired for the day. I pulled out the tube in which my one and only Liometopum occidentale queen  resided in, she had had pupae for a week or so now, which meant workers could pop up any day. I noticed that some of the pupae appeared darker. Upon closer inspection, I realized that one of the "dark pupae", was actually a freshly eclosed (hatched) worker! Here are some pictures I took of her and her new worker: These queens tend to lay massive first batches of eggs compared to other species. This queen is on track to get over 15 workers from her first batch of eggs (which is quite impressive in the world of ants)!  This photo shows both the queen and her worker. As you can see, this queen did not shed her wings after her mating flight (more on mating flights  here ). This is common for this species, particularly for queens caught on or near lights, and for th...