Myrmecocystus mexicanus: California's Largest Honeypot Ants 1/18/2019
During the summer of 2019, I was fortunate enough to go on a trip to the Mojave Desert. While the deserted landscape may seem desolate, it is teeming with an abundance of creatures, if you look in the right places.
One of the best times to see desert life is right after a monsoon storm, which often take place in the summers. These storms drop immense amounts of rain in a short time, which often causes flash floods. However, these rains can also trigger the nuptial flights of ants, where the reproductive males and females fly out of the nest in search of a mate.
Luckily for me, I visited the desert at the perfect time. A storm had come through and dropped multiple inches of rain over some easily accessible desert. Upon arrival to the sites which had received the most rain, I was able to find queens of many different species. One of the species I collected was Myrmecocystus mexicanus, the largest species of honeypot ant in California.
Despite being amazing ants to observe, this species is notoriously difficult to found. Out of the four queens I collected, only one made it past the founding stages. From my limited experience, it seems like they absolutely must have some sort of substrate, as none of the queens produced much of anything in bare test tubes (which is the preferred method for founding ant colonies). After seeing this, I transferred three of my four queens into small dirt setups. One of these queens managed to get her first worker, but unfortunately passed away shortly afterward.
The one queen that was left in a test tube was provided with fine quartz sand, an idea which I received from another ant keeper who has kept this species successfully. This queen managed to produce a great first batch of workers, at which point she was transferred over to a formicarium.
Around five months later, my queen is doing well and has well over 20 workers. This stage of the colony's life can be seen in this video:
One of my favorite things about keeping honeypot ants are the beautiful repletes they produce, which can be seen in the video above. Repletes are workers that act as moving food storages, by gorging themselves on food. They like to hang from the ceilings of the nest chambers, a behavior which I have observed in my own colony. These moving balls of food are what give honeypot ants their name, and what make them some of the coolest ants a hobbyist can keep.
I really enjoy caring for and watching this colony, and will continue to to post more videos of their progress in the near future.
Thanks for reading!
One of the best times to see desert life is right after a monsoon storm, which often take place in the summers. These storms drop immense amounts of rain in a short time, which often causes flash floods. However, these rains can also trigger the nuptial flights of ants, where the reproductive males and females fly out of the nest in search of a mate.
Luckily for me, I visited the desert at the perfect time. A storm had come through and dropped multiple inches of rain over some easily accessible desert. Upon arrival to the sites which had received the most rain, I was able to find queens of many different species. One of the species I collected was Myrmecocystus mexicanus, the largest species of honeypot ant in California.
Despite being amazing ants to observe, this species is notoriously difficult to found. Out of the four queens I collected, only one made it past the founding stages. From my limited experience, it seems like they absolutely must have some sort of substrate, as none of the queens produced much of anything in bare test tubes (which is the preferred method for founding ant colonies). After seeing this, I transferred three of my four queens into small dirt setups. One of these queens managed to get her first worker, but unfortunately passed away shortly afterward.
The one queen that was left in a test tube was provided with fine quartz sand, an idea which I received from another ant keeper who has kept this species successfully. This queen managed to produce a great first batch of workers, at which point she was transferred over to a formicarium.
Around five months later, my queen is doing well and has well over 20 workers. This stage of the colony's life can be seen in this video:
One of my favorite things about keeping honeypot ants are the beautiful repletes they produce, which can be seen in the video above. Repletes are workers that act as moving food storages, by gorging themselves on food. They like to hang from the ceilings of the nest chambers, a behavior which I have observed in my own colony. These moving balls of food are what give honeypot ants their name, and what make them some of the coolest ants a hobbyist can keep.
I really enjoy caring for and watching this colony, and will continue to to post more videos of their progress in the near future.
Thanks for reading!
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