Brachyponera luteipes

[TenebrousNova]

Brachyponera luteipes is a ponerine ant hailing from Asia which is polygynous and supposedly accepts seeds as part of their diet. I've ordered a founding queen from British Ants (I was considering ordering a Solenopsis invicta colony instead, but sanity won out!). Although Brachyponera is regarded as a pest species where they come from, I've had to get most of the information I have on them from videos on YouTube since there isn't a lot of other information available on them. I'm quite certain that B. luteipes can sting, so I must take extra care to avoid that! Fortunately the queen is a bit bigger than her workers, so it won't be difficult to distinguish them. Curiously, I've read that although B.luteipes is hostile to queens from other colonies, they are peaceful towards the workers.
Naturally, they're going to need warmer temperatures and higher humidity.

As always, please feel free to comment.

[TenebrousNova]

They have arrived! I thought it would be a lone queen since the store page didn't specify otherwise as it does with the other species, but there's several active workers. There are a few dead workers, I do hope it wasn't caused by the journey. The queen is quite shy and there's two larvae I can see.



Couldn't get a good photo of the queen, but here she is.



The workers show zero interest in honey so I've left a small cricket for them. When they've settled in I might put a few seeds in, since apparently they do eat them.

[Wood~Ant]

Ponerine ants like these were around about 170 million years ago when dinosaurs ruled the earth. Amazingly they haven't changed much from their Jurassic ancestors and survived for so long, and their history makes them so interesting to keep and observe. Hope they do well.

[TenebrousNova]

With great regret I must report that only one ant is still alive and it isn't the queen...I wonder what I did wrong? I kept them warm and humid like the other Asian ants. That concludes this short-lived journal, I'm afraid.