All ant colonies have at least one egg-laying queen. She is an essential member of the family. Without her there would be no colony. Some species of ant have only one queen in each nest. Others may have several, even numbering in the hundreds. Colonies/species that have only one queen are known as monogynous. Those […]
Polygyny In Ant Colonies Read More »
Ants in winter. It’s the middle of winter, and there has been very little activity outside of the ant nests. However, the ants of all three species remain fairly active inside their nests. This is not unusual. Even in the wild, hibernating ants can still be fairly active during the winter months. Especially on the milder days. Myrmica
Ant Colony Updates – 17 Jan 20 – Ants in Winter. Read More »
Happy New Year 2020 to all my readers/visitors/supporters. Thank you so much for your continued support on my website. My ants have celebrated the New Year – by staying in their hibernation beds, except, that is, for the Lasius umbratus. They have remained fairly active so far this winter, though in greatly decreased numbers. The Lasius niger and
Happy New Year 2020 Read More »
Welcome to another update on my captive ant colonies. In this update I talk about a wandering Myrmica rubra queen, and I discuss allowing my ants to hibernate. I had tried to prevent the ants going into full hibernation this year to try to encourage the Lasius umbratus to complete their new nest excavation. I have done
Captive Ant Colony Journals Update – 3 Dec 19 Read More »
Hello, and welcome to another update on my captive ant colony journals. I had not posted an update last week as there had not been much activity. Instead, I wrote an article about the evolution of ants. To be honest, there is not much activity still. However, here is an update on all three colonies. Lasius niger, Lasius umbratus,
Captive Ant Colony Journals Update – 18 Nov 19 Read More »
In this article, I discuss the evolution of ants. I answer the question of the origin of ants, their ancestors, and the evolutionary steps that occurred to bring us the ants we know today. The Origin of Ants Where, evolutionary speaking, did ants come from? Did they evolve from a common insect ancestor? Did they start
The Origin of Ants Read More »
Hello, and welcome to another ant article. Normally, being a Monday, I would provide an update to my current colonies. However, there has been little activity to report. Therefore, I have decided to write an article instead. This article is about the ants of Australia. I hope you find it informative. Disclaimer: I do not
This is the first of my weekly articles about ants. The topics will be wide-ranging and, hopefully, interesting to the reader. I aim to upload one article each Friday, though this article is one day early, as I had some free time today. Today’s topic is on the relationships of ants with other organisms. I
The Relationships of Ants with other Organisms Read More »
Hello once again to another weekly update on my three current ant colonies. They consist of Lasius niger, Lasius umbratus and Myrmica rubra. Lasius niger This colony recently celebrated its two-month birthday, that is from the birth of the first worker ants. If we were to go from the day the queen laid her first egg,
Myrm’s Ant Colonies Update – 4 Nov 19 Read More »
A few weeks ago I purchased a great little book called, Ants of Britain and Europe: A Photographic Guide. Co-authored by Claude Lebas, Christophe Galkowski, Rumsaïs Blatrix and Philippe Wegnez, it was published this year (2019) in Europe. However, it was actually first published in 2016, in French. A fantastic book, full of very helpful
A Guide to Ants of Britain and Europe Read More »