Ant farms

The ants that will usually be supplied for your ant farm will usually be harvester ants. As their name suggests, they are seed-eaters and occur throughout most of North and South America. There are about sixty different species, in the two genera Pogonomyrmex and, to a small extent, Ephebomyrmex.

If you know any Latin, you might recognise that Pogon means ?bearded? so, literally Pogonomyrmex means ?bearded ant?. It refers to the small whiskers that appear on the underside of the head in some species. If you get the right species, you might be lucky enough to see these with a strong magnifying glass.

Harvester ants are normally found in dry, arid (or xeric) localities and are found more in the west than in the east. The most common species are P. occidentalis, the western harvester and P. barbatus, the red harvester and these are found in the mid west. Some species, notably the California harvester, P. Californicus and P. magnacanthus, can tolerate much higher temperatures and can be found foraging for seeds at 130oF. They can be found in Death Valley and the Mojave Desert.

Nest building The type of nest constructed by an ant colony depends very much on the species and some species are able to exploit a much wider variety of soils or habitat types than others. The red harvester prefers loamy soils and actually avoids pure sand although other species, such as the Florida harvester actually requires it to build a nest.

The name suggests that harvester ants are creatures of the country. Some species, the western harvester for one, will come into towns and can cause damage to sidewalks by digging beneath the flagstones.

Some species tunnel directly into flat soil whereas others may choose vertical faces in which to burrow. This makes it easy to get rid of tunnelling spoil by just dropping it. Others will choose rocks or boulders under which to build. Presumably, if large enough, such a rock would provide protection from large ant-eating animals. It’s usual for nests to be constructed below the surface of the ground but sometimes they can be raised structures, dome-shaped and almost 3 feet high. In a natural setting the nest comprises a highly complicated network of tunnels and chambers of many different sizes and types. Tunnels may be up to half an inch wide and chambers may be six inches long. In the brood chambers of some excavated nests, flowers and other vegetable material has been found. This is probably for the control of humidity rather than decoration!

In an ant farm, particularly where the structure of the farm restricts digging to two dimensions, the tunnel arrangement will be much simpler but you should still be lucky enough to see chambers being constructed as these are a common feature of all nests.

There’s an awful lot more to learn about these fascinating creatures so discover the world of ants and ant farms and how to look after them at http://www.antfarmcentral.com
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