Pseudomyrmex gracilis journal

[Aaron567]

Today I caught a wonderful Pseudomyrmex gracilis queen. I know this is my 3rd journal I've made recently, but these are very strange (and cool) ants and I have never seen anyone with a colony of them on here, so I couldn't resist making a journal. They look and move very wasp-like. Her antennae are constantly moving really fast, and this species is really alert all the time. This is my first Semi-claustral species. This morning I found a male ant in my guppy breeding tub, and it was large and looked a lot like an Odontomachus sp. male. But when I did more research I found out it was indeed Pseudomyrmex gracilis, so I know they are having their nuptial flights now. The queens look very similar to the workers, just with a different thorax shape. The queens are slightly larger, but it is hard to tell if you aren't looking at them side by side. I really hope this queen is able to found a colony, and I am so excited.

The future update photos may not be super up close and detailed like my other journals, since I don't want to disturb her too much and her test tube is in container for her to forage in and she might attack me or something (I've read that they've got a painful sting). I love how her black and orange colors look, so here are some macro shots.

[larynx]

Man, you guys have some cool stuff down in Fl.
great find.

[Aaron567]

She escaped...

If I catch another one I'll start posting again

[Aaron567]

So, in my last post 2 days ago, I said she escaped. This is the whole story:
So when I caught this queen I made a semi-claustral setup for her to found her colony in. When I woke up the next morning, she had escaped but she was just sitting on the lid of her container so I was able to catch her and put her back in. Just an hour later, I realized she escaped again but this time I didn't see her anywhere. Throughout the day, I would go into my room (where she escaped) and look around on the walls. I actually didn't expect to find her again, but later that day after she had been missing for several hours, I came into my room and saw her just sitting on the front glass of my aquarium, as if she was watching my fish. So then I caught her again and setup something different. Now, she has a regular test tube setup inside a larger test tube that has a plastic screw on cap, so this is 100% escape proof but she just has a lot less room to forage. Maybe as long as she gets food she will be fine. I have seen some people have semi-claustral queens in a regular test tube setup but they just put food in it.

Here's the update: I put a freshly killed beetle in there for her yesterday, but I don't know if she has been eating it or not. Just a few minutes ago I was looking around for eggs, and I see one single small white thing in the test tube. Not sure if it is an egg or not, but I'm hoping it is.

Here is her foraging around (The quality is bad because it is taken on my phone instead of my camera)

[Aaron567]

I had to switch to another setup because she just wasn't doing anything in her old one. The new setup is now a piece of tubing (about 3 feet long) with a wet cotton ball inside. I saw this Pseudomyrmex setup in someone's youtube video. I fed her a piece of steak a few days ago and she loved it, and today I put a piece of strawberry in there and she has been eating that. But the bad news is, she has been in this setup for a couple weeks and hasn't laid eggs. I don't know why she isn't laying eggs yet, maybe her setup or maybe she is too stressed right now. I'm not going to change her setup again so she can get used to this one and maybe lay some eggs. At least she is eating

Here is a bad picture of her eating a piece of strawberry. The tubing isn't thin enough to get a perfect picture.

[Aaron567]

Ok, so the previous queen died. I don't know why, but there are various reasons why that could've happened. I wasn't too surprised, since she hadn't laid any eggs in the entire time I had her. But now I have caught another Pseudomyrmex gracilis queen! I decided to put her in a regular test tube setup instead of a "semi-claustral" setup. She probably doesn't need to forage as long as I give her food. I have had her for about 3 days, and I checked on her today to find something convincing! It looks like she has laid a single egg. The egg is very large and is very oval shaped. It is about the size of a several day old fire ant larva. It looked so much like a larvae at first that I was confused, but once I took the macro shot it is easy to tell that it is just a large egg. This species' larvae get pretty large, since they produce such large workers. I'm excited about this!

Here is the new queen. She might be a little larger than the previous queen. Her gaster is definitely larger


The egg:


Here is the egg next to the queen for a size comparison. Her head is 3mm wide.

[Aaron567]

Now she has 2 eggs! This species actually has very small colonies, usually not getting larger than 20-30 workers. That's why she isn't laying many eggs. I've been feeding her every couple days. So far I've fed her 2 pieces of mealworm and a piece of grape. I can't wait until the eggs hatch!

[Aguywithants]

I found a small colony in a twig but there was no queen

[Martialis]

What a beautiful species.

[Dearth335]

I feel that Pseudomyrmex pallidus is a better species. To be honest i am a little biased. I have a colony with 10+ queens. They grow very fast and mate in captivity!