The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

So with the help of an ant keeping discord, I was able to narrow down what my 3 queens were. I have 1 Lasius latipes/murphyi/brevicornis (not sure which, just narrowed it down) and 2 Myrmica rubra/stenamma/myrmecina (same as the first.) I live in Minot, North Dakota and caught them 1 week ago. I found out they're semi-claustral and they need to be hibernated. I was thinking of creating and tub and tubes set up for them. My questions are: first, should I keep the 2 myrmica together in the same set up as I've heard they're polygamous, and second, should I be hibernating them in their test tubes set up or hibernate them in a tubs and tubes set up as they're all semi-claustral? Thank you!

Any other advise for a new and first time ant keeper is also welcome!

Hi and welcome to antkeeping! Myrmica queens are mainly polygamous but do fight if they are from different sp. I would keep them in a Tub-and-tubes setup. Don't immediately put them in hibernation if your going to keep them together as if the two queens dislike one another they have to spend the whole winter together. So just check on them when you feed them. Hopefully they'll get on. For your Lasius queen if it is Latipes or Murphyi which both are social parasites so need host workers to get going (you do some research about these species as I'm not too familiar with them as I'm from Europe). Also Lasius Brevicornis is fully claustral but the queen will probably take any food you give her. Note if your Lasius queen has already laid I think she is a brevicornis.
Hope this helps. Ask if you need advice there are loads of people willing to help!

Thanks for the reply Clash! I should probably add a link to the queens, too lol. If my Lasius is fully Clastrual that would be awesome! But I'm actually not, too sure, although she is the same color as Brevicornis and the Latipes/Murphyi I've seen doesn't match her color.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayNBLDofPF8&list=PLhINOooAJH0Jm3NvM6QDBSwW7v0PF5Txh

Have you tried taking pictures of the queens and posting them along with measurements and your location in the species identification thread? Might be able to get an exact species name.

JoeHostile1 wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 23, 2018 6:46 am

Have you tried taking pictures of the queens and posting them along with measurements and your location in the species identification thread? Might be able to get an exact species name.

I have, no one really responded to it, though.

Ok ya I see that now. What you should do is take pictures because pictures are usually much more clear than videos plus a lot of people don’t want to watch a bunch of videos when they are identifying ants. Also if you embeded the picture in the forums so people don’t have to copy your links and open a new page to paste the link in.

If you do that it just makes it super easy for someone to open your post and immediately be able to identify the species without having to do any work or extra clicking. Also I would do a post for each ant you are trying to identify. And don’t ask any general info questions in your Id request because then you may get an ansewer to your question and someone who might have been able to identify your ant sees that your post already has responses and they may figure the ant has already been identified.

Anyway these are only suggestions that might not matter at all because someone could come on in 5min and identify your ants from your post.

I appreciate the advice. I was just trying to get everything into one post, I guess, haha. My pictures tend to be blurry that's why I used video but I'll try to clean it up and get better pictures for it.

Not polygamous, but polygynous. Even so, they sometimes will fight.

Myrmica can not be identified to the species with close examination. Semi-claustral queens are fairly easy to care for. It’s a common misconception that they’re difficult. All my semi-claustral queens I’ve caught so far have reared workers. I feed them 1-3 fruit flies per day. For Leptothorax, I feed a lot less since they’re far smaller.

LearningAntz wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 23, 2018 1:17 pm

Not polygamous, but polygynous. Even so, they sometimes will fight.

Myrmica can not be identified to the species with close examination.

Actually, some Myrmica can be ID easily without close exmination like Myrmica Rubra.

TheRealAntMan wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 23, 2018 5:51 pm

LearningAntz wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 23, 2018 1:17 pm

Not polygamous, but polygynous. Even so, they sometimes will fight.

Myrmica can not be identified to the species with close examination.

Actually, some Myrmica can be ID easily without close exmination like Myrmica Rubra.

Myrmica rubra is the exception. I was pertaining to other species in the genus. Also just to let you know, the second part of the binomial nomenclature shouldn’t be capitalized.