My Myrmecocystus navajo Colony 12/26/18

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A while back, my cousin and I went on a road trip to Southern California. While we were there, we purchased some ant colonies. One of them is this Myrmecocystus navaio colony, with upwards of 10 workers. These ants are honeypot ants (more on those here)

When we got this colony, they were in a simple test tube and outworld setup. I moved them into a custom made formicarium, which they liked. Unfortunately, while I was on vacation they ran out of water and workers started to die. Eggs were not being laid and brood (young) within the colony was running out. I decided then to move this colony into a dirt setup, as most of the colonies I put in them recover and/or flourish in them.

I had an old dirt box formicarium that I purchased a while back, so I decided to clean it out and replace the substrate with some fresh dirt I collected while out looking for ant queens. Within a few days they had dug their nest, and both repletes had gotten inside without any injuries. Unfortunately, one of the repletes passed away a week or two after moving them into the dirt.

After about 10 days in the dirt setup, the queen laid a big pile of eggs, which you can see in this video I took. The eggs are stuck to the abdomen of their replete, which is quite common in honeypot ant colonies.




Currently, this colony has brood in all stages of development (eggs, larvae, and pupae), and is on track to make a full recovery.

Thanks for Reading!

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