Species ID skills

[JaydenScheepers]

Was it a colony or just a queen who died for no reason?

It was a queen, I caught her as an alate and she shed her wings but she died a few days later.

We that's unfortunate.

[Polyrhachiskeeper]

Was it a colony or just a queen who died for no reason?

It was a queen, I caught her as an alate and she shed her wings but she died a few days later.

aw, so sad. My 'gold spiny ant' queen i caught died, i think i know why. My 2nd P. rastellata queen and this gold queen died. I think it's because they are already founding a colony and are looking for food. Then i came along and captured them and they starved to death. My gold queen was walking extremely fast in the container i caught her in. Then, in the test tube, she was acting slow. I did this the day before yesterday. And this morning i found her curled up and dying slowly. Her abdomen was very small and i think she was really hungry so starved to death.

[JaydenScheepers]

Holy krap guys today has been one of my best days for sure? I am so excited I don't know where to start.

Alright so today after we did some pottery we went to a beach, and it was there where I found Polyrhachis dives. I saw a worker wandering around and I caught her to get a closer look at her and to maybe see if she was a dealate, but it turned out she was just a worker. But still these girls look so gorgeous, especially in person, from their iconic body shape, to those menacing looking spines, and of course their golden glow. When I went on the internet and I saw what the queen looked like, I was actually surprised to see the workers look better than the queen, in my opinion at least.

When we got home I got a package of some handy ant keeping supplies, including bamboo test tubes, hmm will need to see how that goes with my ants, it has substrate inside as well which is handy. However I sometimes just have these urges to go out and ant hunting even if it didn't rain at all, so I'll just be walking around in my neighborhood checking out the native ants and return with nothing special to report. But this time it was different, it started by me checking out some weaver ants, I then looked at a nearby bush and folded up three leaves together to form what weaver ants would call a nest. "The leaves were small and it would make a very small nest, but easy to fold and glue together", I said to myself. I didn't think there were any weaver ants in it, but under it I saw two Polyrhachis workers on separate leaves. These looked a lot like P. rastella; shiny black, with each body part having a pretty circular shape. I was used to seeing these gals as they were pretty much the only Polyrhachis species I'm used to seeing (Accept when I got lucky and discovered some P. dives workers). I then moved in next to the bush to see if I can find the colony so I could have a better chance at finding one of these dealates someday. But that's when it happened! I looked at some tall grass and saw an oddly big Tetraponera rufonigra worker, these girls are everywhere so I was used to the average size of them (Surprised I didn't get stung by one of them yet), so I looked at her thorax, because I thought there might be a dealate. And that's when it hit me, her thorax was noticably bigger and slightly differently shaped than the workers' so I instantly knew she is a dealate. My body rushed with excitement and my heart started beating like crazy, however I tried to focus because I knew that if I loose her I may not get another opportunity like this one for a very long time. But when I caught her my brain got flooded with Dopamine, I observed her and she looks so beautiful, and she is surprisingly calm as well.

I will definitely make a new topic about her and will try my best to get a colony out of her that will last a long time.

[Polyrhachiskeeper]

Holy krap guys today has been one of my best days for sure? I am so excited I don't know where to start.

Alright so today after we did some pottery we went to a beach, and it was there where I found Polyrhachis dives. I saw a worker wandering around and I caught her to get a closer look at her and to maybe see if she was a dealate, but it turned out she was just a worker. But still these girls look so gorgeous, especially in person, from their iconic body shape, to those menacing looking spines, and of course their golden glow. When I went on the internet and I saw what the queen looked like, I was actually surprised to see the workers look better than the queen, in my opinion at least.

When we got home I got a package of some handy ant keeping supplies, including bamboo test tubes, hmm will need to see how that goes with my ants, it has substrate inside as well which is handy. However I sometimes just have these urges to go out and ant hunting even if it didn't rain at all, so I'll just be walking around in my neighborhood checking out the native ants and return with nothing special to report. But this time it was different, it started by me checking out some weaver ants, I then looked at a nearby bush and folded up three leaves together to form what weaver ants would call a nest. "The leaves were small and it would make a very small nest, but easy to fold and glue together", I said to myself. I didn't think there were any weaver ants in it, but under it I saw two Polyrhachis workers on separate leaves. These looked a lot like P. rastella; shiny black, with each body part having a pretty circular shape. I was used to seeing these gals as they were pretty much the only Polyrhachis species I'm used to seeing (Accept when I got lucky and discovered some P. dives workers). I then moved in next to the bush to see if I can find the colony so I could have a better chance at finding one of these dealates someday. But that's when it happened! I looked at some tall grass and saw an oddly big Tetraponera rufonigra worker, these girls are everywhere so I was used to the average size of them (Surprised I didn't get stung by one of them yet), so I looked at her thorax, because I thought there might be a dealate. And that's when it hit me, her thorax was noticably bigger and slightly differently shaped than the workers' so I instantly knew she is a dealate. My body rushed with excitement and my heart started beating like crazy, however I tried to focus because I knew that if I loose her I may not get another opportunity like this one for a very long time. But when I caught her my brain got flooded with Dopamine, I observed her and she looks so beautiful, and she is surprisingly calm as well.

I will definitely make a new topic about her and will try my best to get a colony out of her that will last a long time.

Wow! Cool story, i saw that they sell Tetraponera rufonigra colonies online for 300-350 RM! Thats abt 2430-2840 Thia Baht if i'm not mistaken. Yes, there are lots of T. rufonigra here too, dunno why they haven't stung me yet. They say T. rufonigra can kill anything that's alive.

[Polyrhachiskeeper]

Don't forget the P. cyaniventris.

Yeah, then his collection would be complete or maybe add a rough black spiny ant, P. rastellata are shiny and smooth and quite small. The workers are just 5mm long!

There is also Polyrhachis bihamata and Polyrhachis ypsilon which are tha so called fish hook ants and there is also Polyrhachis bicolor which is about 8mm long and are silver with a red gaster.

I caught a Polyrhachis ypsilon:
https://ibb.co/8jmhxkz
https://ibb.co/7zCbsCB
https://ibb.co/WK8MdX2

I let it craw on my arm. They say they are extremely rare and dangerous . The ant did not try to bite me, just lick me somtimes.

[JaydenScheepers]

Holy krap guys today has been one of my best days for sure? I am so excited I don't know where to start.

Alright so today after we did some pottery we went to a beach, and it was there where I found Polyrhachis dives. I saw a worker wandering around and I caught her to get a closer look at her and to maybe see if she was a dealate, but it turned out she was just a worker. But still these girls look so gorgeous, especially in person, from their iconic body shape, to those menacing looking spines, and of course their golden glow. When I went on the internet and I saw what the queen looked like, I was actually surprised to see the workers look better than the queen, in my opinion at least.

When we got home I got a package of some handy ant keeping supplies, including bamboo test tubes, hmm will need to see how that goes with my ants, it has substrate inside as well which is handy. However I sometimes just have these urges to go out and ant hunting even if it didn't rain at all, so I'll just be walking around in my neighborhood checking out the native ants and return with nothing special to report. But this time it was different, it started by me checking out some weaver ants, I then looked at a nearby bush and folded up three leaves together to form what weaver ants would call a nest. "The leaves were small and it would make a very small nest, but easy to fold and glue together", I said to myself. I didn't think there were any weaver ants in it, but under it I saw two Polyrhachis workers on separate leaves. These looked a lot like P. rastella; shiny black, with each body part having a pretty circular shape. I was used to seeing these gals as they were pretty much the only Polyrhachis species I'm used to seeing (Accept when I got lucky and discovered some P. dives workers). I then moved in next to the bush to see if I can find the colony so I could have a better chance at finding one of these dealates someday. But that's when it happened! I looked at some tall grass and saw an oddly big Tetraponera rufonigra worker, these girls are everywhere so I was used to the average size of them (Surprised I didn't get stung by one of them yet), so I looked at her thorax, because I thought there might be a dealate. And that's when it hit me, her thorax was noticably bigger and slightly differently shaped than the workers' so I instantly knew she is a dealate. My body rushed with excitement and my heart started beating like crazy, however I tried to focus because I knew that if I loose her I may not get another opportunity like this one for a very long time. But when I caught her my brain got flooded with Dopamine, I observed her and she looks so beautiful, and she is surprisingly calm as well.

I will definitely make a new topic about her and will try my best to get a colony out of her that will last a long time.

Wow! Cool story, i saw that they sell Tetraponera rufonigra colonies online for 300-350 RM! Thats abt 2430-2840 Thia Baht if i'm not mistaken. Yes, there are lots of T. rufonigra here too, dunno why they haven't stung me yet. They say T. rufonigra can kill anything that's alive.

Damm, that's pricy!

[Polyrhachiskeeper]

yeah, i know, never buy T. rufonigra. It's best to just collect them