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Post by Wood~Ant on Aug 20, 2010 11:17:18 GMT
Many of you know about boosting a newly mated queen, so here is a video which can be viewed in full HD showing a Lasius niger queen with her own eggs and larvae, as she was mated just over 3 weeks ago; but when Jen was walking our dog 3 days ago, she collected some cocooned pupae from a wild niger nest. The result of this boosting can be seen here
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Post by msi on Mar 14, 2012 21:41:23 GMT
could you still add them to a new queen if she already got workers? or would the workers eat them?
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Post by TenebrousNova on Mar 14, 2012 21:45:20 GMT
Brood is generally accepted regardless of the worker population.
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Post by msi on Mar 14, 2012 22:09:10 GMT
ok cool, so would it work giving Lasius flavus colony Lasius niger brood? as they are both related kinda Lasius?
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mtrein
Nurse Ant
Posts: 93
Likes: 1
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Post by mtrein on Mar 14, 2012 22:12:07 GMT
My Pheidole queens (2) accepted workers which had already hatched from another nest, just like the Asian Pheidologeton.
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Post by batspiderfish on Mar 14, 2012 23:28:18 GMT
Ants from a different species (or even a different genus or subfamily) may be accepted as pupae (or even callows, if they are closely related) into a colony, but their survival in the long term is questionable. Workers aren't often able to communicate well with their strange nestmates.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Mar 15, 2012 8:38:06 GMT
Generally it is better to boost with the exact same species, as the resulting workers behave the same. I wouldn't recommend trying to boost Lasius flavus by adding L. niger brood, as they may be related by genera, but their behaviour is entirely different.
Even slave making ants like Formica sanguiea are choosy when it comes down to robbing other nests for brood, as they prefer closely related ant species within the Formica tribe; and do not take slaves from very distantly related ants. Certainly not Lasius or Tapinoma or other Formicines; and definitely not any Myrmicine species.
So if you do boost, use either the exact same species, or very closely related ones like say Formica fusca and Formica lemani. Otherwise the boosting may fail and the captured brood is eaten.
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Post by batspiderfish on Mar 15, 2012 14:14:25 GMT
I'm thinking that in the case of Lasius flavus and Lasius niger, it might be ok to boost between species. I imagine that L. niger may be more enthusiastic foragers than their nestmates.
I notice that in my Lasius umbratus colony, it's the L. alienus that do most of the foraging. Normally, one might say this is because the host workers are older than the parasitic workers, but I actually boosted this colony with Lasius alienus pupae again, rather recently. ;D
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Billy
Leaf Cutter Ant
Lasius niger, Formica lemani
Posts: 71
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Post by Billy on Mar 17, 2012 12:14:45 GMT
I think it would be an interesting experiment, although it may not work.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Mar 17, 2012 12:17:23 GMT
Perhaps when there's more to go around, I'll give a few of my L.niger pupae to the L.flavus and see what happens. It would certainly be interesting if the L.niger were allowed to eclose and forage. I expect they would be a lot easier to feed.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Mar 17, 2012 12:50:33 GMT
Nice to see how this thread has gone into how boosting can be useful, and to think it was posting my video that has led to these interesting ideas. ;D
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Post by tatufmetuf on May 26, 2018 16:54:12 GMT
the worst scenario would be wild pupae eaten by the colony right ? did you ever heard of wild pupae hatching and fighting the colony ?
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Post by Wood~Ant on May 26, 2018 17:19:40 GMT
the worst scenario would be wild pupae eaten by the colony right ? did you ever heard of wild pupae hatching and fighting the colony ? No, it never happens as they take on the scent of the colony from contact with the queen.
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Post by deansyme on May 26, 2018 17:26:53 GMT
One thing I found was Myrmica would kill other Myrmica naked pupae from different nest that had already turned orange or due to turn into callows but accepted the white naked pupae and larva fine. Formica lemani accept any pupae with no issues.
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