Messor cephalotes

[TenebrousNova]

Messor cephalotes is the largest species in its genus and hail from Kenya, Ethiopia and Tansania. The queens alone can be up to 25mm in length and their majors can reach a similar size. This species is also known for its bright red colour and due to their rarity, they are highly sought after. Indeed, they've always been one of my dream ants to keep.

Today I very, very nervously decided to order a colony from magicants.de, a German site. These ants are rarely offered up for sale and when they are, their price tag is just astonishing. They're usually sold as single queens with or without brood but this queen has 15-20 workers and brood- the seller kindly sent me a photo of them- so this seems to be much less risky. I won't mention their price here in case my family somehow locates this forum and journal and murders me. Needless to say, this is a once off and if the colony doesn't work out- I'm very aware of the risks- I will not be doing anything like this again, no matter how pretty the ants are. 

As always, comments and feedback are more than welcome. Fingers crossed for me and the colony when they arrive this week.

[Wood~Ant]

Beautiful ant species, but I priced them up and they are so expensive to be way over my budget. I wish you luck with your new colony as I know you'll take lovely photos of them.

[TenebrousNova]

Nov 25, 2019 18:50:00 GMT Wood~Ant said:

Beautiful ant species, but I priced them up and they are so expensive to be way over my budget. I wish you luck with your new colony as I know you'll take lovely photos of them.

Thank you Wood, they look very photogenic so I'm looking forward to it. I'm told they should arrive tomorrow! I wonder how hard M. cephalotes majors can bite compared to those of M. barbarus?

Here's a great video of them:

[Wood~Ant]

They have the potential to reach up to 20, 000 in number, but in captivity 7,000 to 10,000 is more likely. Avoid their bite as I've heard that the major workers can draw blood.

[TenebrousNova]

They are here! Niclas asked me to take a video of me unpackaging them for the purposes of the live arrival guarantee (And I did an awful job at it) but luckily the colony is in good shape anyway, so no one has to see it!

There's one enormous, gorgeous queen- much bigger than M. barbarus- and 21 or 22 workers. There's also a few eggs and several small larvae.



Here's the queen.



This is one of the largest two workers. I think they are media workers.



Most of the brood. The round white eggs to the left are surprisingly big.





And here's a worker with some ant bread!


The colony is quite relaxed, although there's evidence that they've been chewing at the cotton. Now I just need to find something to use as an outworld. I'd like to wait for the colony to grow a bit more before giving them a permanent home, just in case.

[TenebrousNova]

I've given the colony a small cricket and some seeds. Although they suspiciously examined the cricket they don't seem interested in it- but the seeds get picked up and taken to the other side of the test tube. They seem to be the colony's preferred diet right now. Earlier I saw a queen holding a seed in her jaws, perhaps helping to crack it open for her smaller daughters.

I might have to wait until Monday until I can prepare an outworld for them. Until then, they should do okay in my warm room and wrapped in tin foil.

[TenebrousNova]

I've prepared a simple outworld for the colony with a test tube partly filled with water for humidity. They're exploring right now and also taking bits of rubbish out of their test tube. I actually miscounted. There's 24 workers in total.

[TenebrousNova]

The M. cephalotes have been very busy today what with exploring their outworld and attempting to organise themselves. I read in the blog of Liber Ants (The person who owns the colony in the above video) that he keeps his at 25C during the day and 21C at night, so that's what I will do.

The workers threw almost all of their seeds out but after a few hours started to bring them back inside, as well as some new ones. Maybe they were drying them out? They've also been furiously tugging on a big chunk of cotton, queen included. I used my tweezers to help get that piece out and they settled with it out of the way. They've also been making a pile of seeds inside the other test tube and right now seem to be moving seeds to it from the other pile.

Here's a minor and media sharing a water droplet. I've got a little water dispenser in there but they haven't worked out how to use it. I might just put out some wet cotton for them instead.



Cheese! This is likely their first encounter with it. I've found that barbarus loves it so it wouldn't hurt to try it on this colony.



The worker decided after several minutes of investigation that it's tasty enough to bring inside. Her sisters apparently agree because they're having a tug of war match over it.



And they also seem interested in ham.



Hopefully the queen will start to lay more eggs before long.

[TenebrousNova]

The colony has now moved into the other test tube. There were some odd moments that worried me, such as when most of the colony except the queen camped out in the feeding bowl with the brood and when the queen was sitting for ages outside the test tubes, but things seem normal now. There is a PTFE barrier around the top of the outworld but so far it hasn't been tested- the workers have made no attempt to climb the sides.

In this photo you can see two seeds being processed into ant bread- one being chewed up on the left and a newly opened one being carried on the right. There's no trace of the cheese and ham they had a few days ago, so I can only assume that they ate it. I'm still very apprehensive and don't think I'll breathe a sigh of relief until I see newly laid eggs.

[TenebrousNova]

Yesterday I gave the colony a few fruit flies, which to my surprise they accepted. Just now I offered them a crumb of my homemade cheese straws and that too was taken into the test tube! I'm so glad that they're eating.



One of the minors has died but that might be due to old age. I also got bitten by one of the media workers last night- felt about as hard as an M. barbarus major!

[shane]

wow I would love them next to my colony of messors. Way too expensive for me though. Good luck with colony I think they will do really well in your care.

[TenebrousNova]

Still no sign of eggs yet, but when I put in some seeds just now the workers came running out to collect them.

[TenebrousNova]

So, how do I put this?

A few days ago the workers dragged the body of the queen out of the test tube. I picked her up- definitely dead. I have no idea how this could've happened, as far as I'm aware I was doing everything by the book and the colony was active and eating everything I gave them. The seller still hasn't gotten back to me yet after I told him the bad news.

I knew the risks when I got them but still, what an expensive, embarrassing mistake...I love this species, but won't try them again unless ant sites start selling them for far less in future.