Hello from central Florida!

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Lycosa

Hello from central Florida!

Post: # 20904Post Lycosa
Tue May 09, 2017 10:55 pm

Hello everyone!

I'm new to keeping ants and formicaria, but I'm a seasoned invert keeper of many different 6 and 8 legged friends.

I'm the previous owner of Beckman's Arachnoculture, a tarantula breeding facility as well as a licensed venomous reptile breeding facility.

Nowadays, I don't have the time to keep so many animals and I'm mostly concerned with breeding species of interest to me as a hobby.

So Mikey Bustos has a definite way with describing ant keeping in his videos and I'm hooked! I've bought a large Omni-Nest, and glass test tubes, and...well every thing else I could think of.

Further, I've started to delve into researching what makes ants..Ants. In spider morphology, we have cephalothorax, abdomen, and other characteristics. Things like gaster and mesosoma are all new terms to me, but I love it all the same.

So a little trip around my back yard I've found 2 very interesting colonies. I've got Solenopsis geminata (I'm guessing not invicta since there are majors present with very large square heads with the menacing mandible attached). I also have a colony of trap jaw ants in my backyard! I'm was thrilled to see them. I would have never guessed they'd be in my yard. So very cool!

Lastly, I've caught 2 queens. I'm certain they are fire ant queens, but I'm not sure if they are invicta or geminata. Both species occur everywhere around my area. One of the queens passed, likely my fault since it seems I caught the girl in a snap cap vial that had a bit of spider silk that caught onto her legs and I think it led to her demise. I feel pretty awful about that. The other is in a proper test tube setup in a nice warm dark place and I with my fingers crossed! Time will tell.

So sorry for the tldr, but I figured I might as well introduce myself properly.
Any advice is certainly appreciated!

Lycosa

Re: Hello from central Florida!

Post: # 20914Post Lycosa
Wed May 10, 2017 2:22 am

Thought I'd post a couple pictures of my ant colony (hopeful) queen - S. invicta or geminata.


Image

Image

And finally, a picture of queen that passed, identical to the live queen I'm now raising, that compares what I'm guessing are wing scars against a S. geminata queen's scars. Sorry for my awful photography...

Image

Martialis
Posts: 1576
Joined: Mon Aug 08, 2016 5:30 pm
Location: Indiana

Re: Hello from central Florida!

Post: # 20919Post Martialis
Wed May 10, 2017 6:36 am

That last picture is your best, although a clear picture of her entire body would be helpful to pin down the species. Also, measurements are needed.
Keeper of

Selliing:

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