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Post by Wood~Ant on Mar 16, 2010 15:16:02 GMT
By now a few of you will have seen that I have started a new journal for this colony, and may also have seen the HD video. So if you have any advice to offer, or comments to make, then please do post them here  I would welcome help on what diet they like, as I know a few of the guys keep this fascinating tiny ant species and can give some good advice about them  |
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Post by Kyle on Mar 16, 2010 18:20:31 GMT
To be honest as far as food goes, they will eat anything, mine seem to like mealworms most, but that could be cause they are just easy to mover around, they will even take seeds onto the nest, but most the time they only start to grow, they do eat honey/sugar water from time to time but they don't drink a lot and quite a few workers tend to get stuck and die  but I hope they do well for you as they truly are brilliant little ants |
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Phasmid
Nurse Ant 
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Post by Phasmid on Mar 16, 2010 19:24:13 GMT
I feed mine cockroaches and young phasmids. These grow so fast, one of my fav species!
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Post by Wood~Ant on May 15, 2011 8:20:16 GMT
Reading through the journals of other Ant Hill members who have just started keeping Pheidole pallidula, I see that a problem is finding the tiny workers are drowning in droplets of condensation  I keep my own colony in a soil set up, and it often gets nearly bone dry, which means I do have to spray the soil surface from time to time. Some minor condensation does form, but usually soaks up fairly quickly. The foraging pot is always kept 100% completely dry, and only a very small amount of honey water is placed onto a wad of cotton wool inside a plastic bottle cap. The ants drink from this and don't drown. I have found however that these ants lick up the juices from dead insects and spiders, which makes them more carnivorous than larger ants like Formica for example, who seem to exist on a sweet liquid diet more or less, whereas Pheidole act like miniature army ants from my own observations; and although the workers drag back large greenbottle flies to feed to the larvae, they also seem to suck on the insect and extract some of the bodily juices like blood or soft tissue fluids Limited air circulation is often the main problem for causing condensation, so a flow of warm fresh air will help keep it to a minimum. |
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 24, 2011 20:42:32 GMT
Did you ever find out what the mysterious round objects in with the larvae are? I found a picture of them with some very big larvae, with the caption in French: Larvas de machos de Pheidole Pallidula. This translates to 'male larvae of Pheidole Pallidula' or something similar, but I believe it refers to the larvae and not to the objects.  |
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Post by Blem12 on May 25, 2011 6:31:47 GMT
Did you ever find out what the mysterious round objects in with the larvae are? I found a picture of them with some very big larvae, with the caption in French: Larvas de machos de Pheidole Pallidula. This translates to 'male larvae of Pheidole Pallidula' or something similar, but I believe it refers to the larvae and not to the objects. I am sorry to say, Timenova but ''Larvas de machos de Pheidole Pallidula'' is not French but Spanish, I know this due to me being half Spanish. Yep, the translation is right. |
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 25, 2011 6:41:03 GMT
Ah, sorry. I was using Google Translate, but didn't look at what language the translation was set to and assumed it to be French, which I had used for translations earlier.  |
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Post by Wood~Ant on May 25, 2011 7:32:44 GMT
Last year I noticed a lot of globular like objects in the nest, which were far too big for eggs and looked more like odd shaped larvae. They eventually became ant pupae which surprised me, although all of the brood turned into either soldiers or workers, with not a male among them |
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peanuts
Honey Pot Ant 
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Post by peanuts on Nov 11, 2011 10:21:11 GMT
These sound like a really cool species to keep Wood, and at least you update your journals regularly so we know what's happening with them  Shame other ant forums aren't as good as this one, but AHW is by far the best English speaking ant forum as far as I am concerned. |
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Post by Wood~Ant on Dec 12, 2011 9:27:13 GMT
As this species is found in Southern Europe, I find this ant perhaps the easiest of any Pheidole to keep. They certainly do extremely well in Jen's south facing room all year round, which only has minimal additional heating during very cold spells; and then mostly during the hours of darkness. On the whole, they are a great little ant to keep and study, even if I do have to use a magnifying lens to watch their antics. |
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Post by Black Ant on Apr 15, 2014 15:01:23 GMT
Sorry to read about the accident with this colony, hate it when things like that happen but glad to hear you saved some of the colony Wood and Jen.
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Post by Shawn on Apr 15, 2014 16:40:42 GMT
Sorry to hear this Wood, same type of thing happened to with my L.nigers and my son but didn't lose any ants but queen has not moved since  Hope they rebuild the colony for you very soon. |
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Post by Zarbi on Apr 16, 2014 11:00:45 GMT
A sad day to read of the demise of this colony |
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Hope they rebuild the colony for you very soon.
