East Bay Spring Anting (3/29/2021)

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     Yesterday afternoon, I took a trip to the East Bay area to look for Pogonomyrmex subdentatus queens. This species has their mating flights once in the spring, and once in the fall. It had gotten quite warm in that part of the bay area, with temperatures around 80F. Usually, this is warm enough to trigger their flights, so I left home and arrived at my first location around 1PM.


    Unfortunately, the first location I checked had plenty of colonies, but did not yield any queen ants. I noticed that it was very hot at this location, likely warmer than what was reported. This made me suspect that the temperature readings in the region were slightly off, and that they might have flown during the previous heatwave. In the future, I will be sure to account for the inaccuracy of the forecasts in this area.


    Luckily, the second location I visited was in a more hilly area, where the temperatures were noticeably cooler. I suspect that it did not get warm enough for Pogonomyrmex to fly here during the previous month's heatwave, and so when temperatures approached 80F the colonies started to fly. I observed some queens digging their claustral chambers, and found a few scurrying around on the ground. 


    Here is one of the chambers that was being excavated by a queen:


    

    The crescent shaped dirt pile centered around a small hole is very typical of both Myrmecocystus  and Pogonomyrmex spp. queens. In many regions, these founding burrows present some of the best opportunities to find queens. 

    One of the P. subdentatus queens I caught during the trip:



    Over the course of approximately 40 minutes, I collected five of these Pogonomyrmex queens. I hope to raise some of them to maturity and attempt captive breeding experiments with the resulting colonies. Already, I have two colonies that are producing alates in captivity, so I hope to start experimentation as early as this autumn.


   



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