Maybe you’ve heard it: keep the ants as pets! Keep interesting and fun ant colonies due to the uncanny ability of ant colonies to function as one unit. Setting up Ant Colony cages, called a formicarium can be challenging, but certainly worth the effort for a fan of insects! or get 24 Hour Rescue Near Me

Ants included in the taxonomic groups of Hymenoptera, as wasps and bees. All species of ants live in colonies, there is not a single Ant species.

In ant colonies, shared duties with very tight: the Queen lays eggs, the workers take care of the larvae, collect food, and build nests. All worker ants are women.

Several species of ants have the kind of worker who is different, they look different from any other work to be able to perform certain tasks better.

The worker caste called type (one caste, the caste of two) and can be devoted to defend the colony, getting food for large or small colonies or even keep food in her body.

One example of an Ant is Ant caste soldiers. Army ants are usually bigger than other workers and have large JAWS that are used to bite. They will defend the nest against intruders.

Once a year the colony will produce the new King and Queen. Ant is different from the workers because they are able to mate and lay eggs. The new King and Queen will leave the colony to start a new colony elsewhere.

There are about 22,000 different Ant species on Earth. Ants can be found on every continent except Antarctica, and can be called a very successful creature in evolution: If you add all the dry biomass of all animals on Earth, 15 to 25% of the biomass comes from ants.

Ants and other Hymenoptera have a sex determination system possess-Diplo. Major said this means that Ant’s genetic males and females is not determined by the X chromosome or Y like in humans, but is determined by the total number of chromosomes.

The male Ant has only half the number of chromosomes compared to Ant females. This is because the male ants evolved from eggs are not fertilized. Each of the chromosomes in haploid eggs this only happened once.

Ant females develop from fertilized eggs. Each chromosome in diploid egg appears twice, one set derived from the mother and one set from the father.

The social system in the Ant Colony system called eusocial; the eusociality of ants show. Eusocial species will have a Queen lays all the eggs and have a sterile workers who will work for the colony without reproduction. In colony eusociality workers will serve without producing offspring of their own.

24 Hour Rescue Near Me This has puzzled biologists for a very long time. Really surprising to see that an animal would be sacrifice his life to defend the colonies and that the animals would work without reproducing. This system seems to be unstable in the sense of evolution.

# Parents are more adaptable/parents who have more success will spread to the relatively more genes to the next generation than the older people who are less adapt.

The next generation will have more genes that cause adaptation or success than previous generations. But in this system the ants don’t seem to function at first glance;

# Workers do not reproduce and therefore the genes that make their workers did not spread to the next generation. And if there is a cunning worker produced some eggs, this crafty genes spread to the next generation and therefore will increase the frequency.

At first sight the existence of eusociality is a paradox. But apparently the system works through a different way. The Queen and the workers brothers, therefore many genes there are in the Queen is also present in workers.

When the workers helped raise their brothers and sisters, they will also deploy their own genes. Raising two nieces or nephews will produce the same amount of gene dispersal as will be disseminated with raising son/daughter.

Since it works in the colony was far more efficient than individually raising a child when you are ants, ants more genes can spread when living in a eusocial system rather than individually.

Other species such as termites, bees, wasps, and naked mole rats have adopted a similar eusocial system. Biologists term used is ‘ inclusive fitness ‘ and ‘ family ‘ options to explain eusociality.

Please Google these terms to learn more about it. My explanation is short and incomplete, because there are a lot of ins and outs of this explanation.

24 Hour Rescue Near Me Everyone can tell you what kind of ants. Six legs, two antennae, the body is made of three parts (head, chest and abdomen). Some ants have wings, these are the King and Queen. The ants can come in many color including black, Brown, yellow and red.

The species most common pet Ant is Ant Lasius niger black garden, the harvesters, Messor barbarus, and red ant Myrmica rubra. Lasius niger ants are very common and both in Europe and also occur in the United States.

The harvester ant Messor barbarus is a species of Ant from southern Europe and is a favorite pet ants because of the different worker castes. He has a small workers (under) and large (the majors) and can be fed with seeds so it’s easy to feed the ants.

Pet ants can be stored in a simple glass tube until it is large enough for the colony was transferred to real formicarium. Formicarium is a real Ant enclosure with nest and compartment neven “outer n”.

A glass tube filling with sugar water should be close with great tufts of cotton, cotton behind it will be the Queen Ant and his descendants.

Test tubes can be closed with a plug of cotton wool to prevent other ants escape. This type of housing does not look appealing at all, but very efficient to keep a small colony with a maximum of 25 workers.

Housing is a very nice Ant formicarium place ants feel good and where owners can observe the ants in the nest. This kind of Formikarium is composed of the area of the nest and the area “outside”.

The area of the nest is made from gypsum or concrete tunnel in it, cover by a glass stone. Glass covering by something to keep the hive remains dark, but can be remove so that the owners of peering into the nest. 

“Area outside ” is the place where You will put the food for ants and where they will dump them. The second area is protecting from the ants escaping by closing it or by covering the outer edges with teflon.

There are many types of formicaria that everything looks good, I’ll show just one. Ant jelly as sold by the store toys for children are not suitable for storing in a colony of ants, no matter what the word package.

To build this you will need a formicarium boxes or plastic boxes are rectangular or oblong, rubber or clear plastic tube with a diameter of 1 cm, powdered gypsum, clay, play-doh soft stone and glass are slightly smaller than the part top of cans or plastic boxes. The box must be 20 x 10 cm with a height of 4-6 cm for ant colonies are small (up to 150 workers).

To make the nest area: use clay to make a tunnel above the slate glass. It should look like the above picture, including a moat round nest of space and water.

Then fill the Tin box with gypsum (gypsum powder + water, such as on the package). Suspend the glass slate with a side of clay down to a gypsum and let it become hard.

Don’t let the glasses got under gypsum, should remain on it. When gypsum is complete, you can take off the glass and let go of the clay. If you put the stones back glass after cleaning it, you’d have a nest so! Make sure the rubber tube from the tunnel to the outside of the Tin box.

You must fill in the trench with water water every week. This will move through the gypsum and will make a nest of damp in some places. Ants can choose a place to live based on the amount of moisture.

Ants can chew or dig gypsum, with sufficient time. Always make sure that the cans or plastic boxes that ant-tight. Ant eggs and larvae can take them on and off completely.

Rubber tubing used to connect the nest area to area “outside”. The outside area is the most convenient plastic boxes that can be closed completely. It must have air holes or must be open at the top with the ends closed teflon or paraffin oil (replace regularly!) To prevent the ants run out.

At the bottom of the outside area you have to put white sand. Also place the food for the ants in the outside area. Dispose of all litter ants in here every week.

What do ants eat depending on the species. Generally ants eat insects, dead or alive and a mixture of water and sugar (or water and honey).

Some species eat seeds, such as the Ant Messor barbarus, fragrant, in addition to insects and their sugar water. Occasionally You can feed Your ants also fruit, a piece of meat, pollen or syrup.

You can make sugar water for ants by mixing water with 7 units 1 unit of sugar (or honey). You can pour it in the soda bottle cap and place it on the area’s “outer n” Your formicarium. Change the water every 2-3 days. Don’t let it run out.

Insects that you can eat into Your new ants die or live on small crickets, flies, moths, flies, and aphids. Protein in insects is extremely important to the health of your pet the Ant Colony.

The air humidity is best for Ant Colony depends on the species of ants, some require their nests to dry while others need it damp. Ants know best what is good for them, so you have to offer them a different humidity area in the hive.

Ants will move their offspring to their optimal humidity. Read more about making a water moat to give ant colony with water vapor in the section on  “the Ant Colony Pet housing “.

Temperature for formicarium must be between 20 and 28 ° C, with the drop in temperature at night up to a maximum of 15 ° C, you can heat the hive with electric heat pads or with lights.

The nest should remain dark all the time, but if you cover the area with plastic or paper nest of black you can heat it with lights. Always be wary of the danger of fire! Overheating Your Ant and deadly for the ants in a few hours.

The time it takes for the ants evolved from egg to adult depending on the species of Ant, environmental temperature and castes of ants. Most of the species of Ant takes about two weeks to develop from an egg to the workers.

The growth of a colony depends on the number of eggs laid and Queen on the success of the development of eggs.

If you have a colony with adverse conditions, such as too little protein in the diet, the humidity is too high or low, the temperature is too high or low or stressful conditions such as bright lights in the area of the nest, eggs and larvae die.

24 Hour Rescue Near Me A colony of ants being as old as the Queen: about 3 to 10 years depending on the species of ants and how well you take care of him.

You can buy a colony of ants or Queen ants, or you can collect one from nature. For both options, you have to choose to just be the Queen or Queen with a few workers. If you find or buy a Queen without the workers, You don’t know if she marries.

She never marries, he would never start a colony. If you want to buy a Queen Ant Colony for a start, I would recommend to buy it with egg or worker so you sure she marries.

You wanna collect ants from nature, I suggest to just get the Queen as they are very easy to find. In the summer the Queen ant colony will produce young that can be find anywhere. When you find it without the wings, they probably mating process. You will not interfere with nature by getting one or two of the young Queen.

You can also dig up complete Ant to find the Queen. I strongly deny this. You will destroy the Ant is complete and you may not find the Queen. Without a Queen, you can’t keep the ants in the nest are functional as a pet. Several species of ants are protect by law so as not to disturb them.

Do not let go of the Ant species foreign to nature! This will disturb the balance of nature and in some State or country is even illegal. 24 Hour Rescue Near Me