Arizona Queens (photos)

[Wood~Ant]

Today I received 2 queens from Martin Goss, both species are from the deserts of Arizona in the USA.
All the photos were taken by Jenant.

The first queen is a Honey Pot Ant, called Myrmecocystus mimicus. Here she is below

The second queen is more of a Harvester Ant species and is called Pheidole rhea

I hope you guys like them

[kalistes]

My M. mimicus queen also wasted no time at all shifting large amounts of soil in her effort to create a chamber. There is actually a large mound of earth around the hole I originally made for her.

[Wood~Ant]

kalistes said:

My M. mimicus queen also wasted no time at all shifting large amounts of soil in her effort to create a chamber. There is actually a large mound of earth around the hole I originally made for her.

The small hillock of soil reminds me of a miniature volcano, and her brood chamber keeps growing larger. These Honey Pot Queens are certainly busy little girls

[Caydenn]

thanks for the brilliant pics, it is always good to get nice pics to look at.

[cranberry]

Wow! If there is an ant I would really want it has to be the honeypot queen! I have a dvd which is partly about them, and I find it amazing how they have ants that simply store food IN them, hanging from the top of the chamber...

I would love to see pictures if you're able to see the honeypots!

[Wood~Ant]

cranberry said:

I would love to see pictures if you're able to see the honeypots!

Actually this will be the Honey Pot queens first brood, so any repletes won't appear until the colony gets bigger, which may mean we will not have any 'honey pots' until later next year

[Wood~Ant]

After the sad demise of the P. rhea queen, my Honey Pot colony certainly grows well. The M. mimicus now number 1 very healthy queen, 5 workers, 6 cocooned pupae and 17 larvae.

If anyone else had this species, I would love to hear how well your Honey Pot Ants are progressing. I can hardly believe just how well this colony of mine is doing, and I hope to see it grow large enough to have repletes maybe later next year

Oh yes, and there is a little nest entrance hole where 1 worker comes up tp forage for food

[.Luff.]

They are beautiful!

[Shawn]

Hey Wood how they doing?

I think that will be my next purchase I like the look of them Honey Pot Ants but that not till next year maybe


Shawn

[Jenny]

They are doing great Shawn, the Queen is doing really well and they have a lot of workers and plenty of larvae. We did lose a few as they are great escape artists and so Wood had to fix the lid with some tape

[Wood~Ant]

austin said:

But still I know little about this species...I am guessing that the ones with the big yellow abdomens have honey stored in them am I wrong?

The ants with the swollen gasters (abdomens) are called Repletes, and these are very young workers who's chitin has not hardened and is still soft and pliable. They store liquid foods such as honey, nectar from flowers or honey dew from aphids in their crop (first stomach which is above an ants real stomach); and this liquid can then be regurgitated and fed to other ants who stroke the replete with their antennae, literally begging to be fed. A droplet of food is passed from the repletes, who hang by their legs suspended from the roof of the nest chambers, and via trophallaxis the storage ant repletes help the colony survive when food may be scarce.
Think of it as stocking up your larder when you go food shopping. So it is with these ants, they have great forward planning to prevent starvation during hard times

Most species of ants will store food, but the Honey Pots have taken this one step further and the repletes never leave the nest. People eat them covered in chocolate or even fresh from their desert nests; but don't try eating just any ants, as their formic acid will burn your tongue or at least not taste too nice

[Zarbi]

That's a good interpretation of why they're called honey pot ants

[toudzard]

Cool photos, nice queens also