I’ve been keeping ants for almost 30 years, starting with a glass tank in 1997. Over that time we’ve kept 101 species from 36 genera, from Lasius niger and Messor barbarus to Paraponera clavata, Myrmecia, Oecophylla and Atta leafcutters.

I put together a short film of some of them, real footage from our own colonies. Full disclosure: I run Best Ants UK, so I’m biased, but this one is purely about the ants.

AI declaration: the voiceover is my own voice, cloned with ElevenLabs, and AI tools helped with the editing. All footage is real and filmed by us.

Which species was your first, and which one is still on your wishlist?

I’ve had this terrarium for about a year now. These ants very, very slowly started appearing about a little over a month ago. I put down some fruit earlier and now I see how many there are, way more than I thought. Strangely, some have a perfectly round abdomen while some have a grooved, elongated abdomen.

What are they? How could they have gotten inside? Surely they didn’t come with the substrate, I assume they would’ve made an appearance much sooner if so.

Normally I’d love caring for a colony but they are living with my 3 year old lineage of cylisticus convexus and now that they have shown their numbers, I see them bickering with my pods.

Concerned about what to do here and intrigued as to how they got in / what species they are. Any help is appreciated.

Middle of North America

Hi all!
I keep isopods and got tired of counting colonies by eye and the stress it creates the animals, so I built SnapCounter:
Take or load a photo, tap each individual and get the total. You can also use colored categories (e.g. workers vs. brood, or different castes).

Screenshot is from my isopods, but it works on anything you can photograph — I'd love to know how it does with ant colonies.

It's in closed testing on Google Play and needs testers for 14 days before it can go public:

1. Join the tester group: https://groups.google.com/g/snapcounter-testers
   
2. Opt in: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.snapcounter
   
3. Install from the Play Store and keep it installed for 14 days
   

Feedback and feature ideas very welcome. Thanks! 🐜

Species: Pheidole obscurithorax

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Common Name: Big-Headed Ants

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Location: Houston, Texas, USA

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Colony Size: 1 Queen, 80+ Minor Worker, 9 Major Workers & Brood

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Recorded on Samsung Galaxy s25 Ultra

I had a random question occur to me today. I'm keeping Atta for the first time and was surprised by their very distinct odor. It's an earthy and musky smell that is pretty pungent. I'm sure it's coming from their fungus but I thought it was interesting. It made me wonder if other species have an odor? So my question is what species do you own and do they have a smell?

She came. She crawled. She dreamed of becoming a butterfly. Unfortunately, the ants had other plans :) 🐜

A little moment from Garden of Ants, the ant colony RTS/sim we are working on.

Does the way she crawls look natural to you? What kind of caterpillar would you like to see in a game about ants?

More about the project on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3016940/Garden_of_Ants/

Best

Tomas

Hi antkeepers, I desperately need your advice.

I am hastily preparing for putting my ants to cold for winter (into a fridge), but I have trouble preparing them.

• The Problem: As you can see, the water level in their test tube is quite low. The cotton has black mold on it, which the ants don't seem to care about. They usually don't avoid it, it is not on the eggs etc. But I am afraid to put them to hibernation in this setup. Rehoming them in the middle of winter sounds like a really bad idea. So I wanted to do so now.
  • In the gallery you can see my rehoming setup. The new test tube is fresh with a new cotton and enough water. They don't mind exploring it. The straw is wide enough for the queen to fit through. But I left them exposed to light for two days and they just stayed in their old spot!
  • Can I do something about this? Is it necessary to rehome them now or can I put them in the cold and in the fridge as they are now? I don't want to stress them much more.
• The Ants: This queen is this year's catch. I caught it at my doorstep in the central Europe at the end of spring. It seems to be Camponotus Ligniperda. The summer heats helped the first generation mature very fast, but dropped the water level quite low.
  • There are 10 healthy nanites and a decently sized pile of eggs and recently even larvae. I feed them honey water and houseflies I catch outside. They seem to prosper, this is the first problem I need advice for. This is my first colony. I love them and want the queen to live long and prosper.

Thank you for your help!

This is my Pheidole pallidula colony from Croatia. The queen was caught this year.

Hey everyone!

I noticed we didn't have a dedicated regional space for ant keeping around here, so I set up a local Facebook group: Northeast Ohio Ant Keepers.

The goal is to give keepers across Stark, Summit, Portage, Mahoning, Cuyahoga, and surrounding counties a hyper-local spot to:

Share Nuptial Flight Alerts: Real-time updates when species like Camponotus, Tetramorium, or Lasius are flying in our yards so nearby keepers can grab test tubes and catch queens.

Local Colony Trades & Sales: Buy, sell, or swap native test-tube queens and founding colonies in person without having to deal with shipping or weather delays.

Regional Care & Setups: Discuss local diapause/hibernation timing for Ohio's weather, formicarium builds, and species identification.

Whether you've been keeping colonies for years or are just looking to catch your very first queen this spring, feel free to join us!

Link is in comments.

Sorry for bad quality I just can't get a good picture

Every season, the same questions come up: "Are Camponotus flying yet?" "Did anyone see Lasius go up today?" The answers are scattered across Discord channels, old threads and word of mouth, so they're gone by next year.

I'm a keeper building ANTS (ants.arcosants.com), and one piece of it is a nuptial flight map. The goal is simple: keepers everywhere log the flights they see, and over time we get a real, shared record of when and where each genus flies, all year and in both hemispheres.

How it works:

• You report a flight with the genus (species if you know it), the date and time, and the weather if you noticed.
• Locations are coarse. Pins show a rough area, never your exact spot, and sharing is opt-in.
• Reports are reviewed before they show up, so the map stays trustworthy.

Why it matters: with enough reports, we can see patterns for each region, like the weeks Pheidole flies in Florida versus Texas, or how a warm spring shifts things. That helps new keepers know when to look, and it builds a dataset that doesn't exist yet in one place.

It only works if lots of people contribute, so even one report helps. I'd love feedback too: what would make you actually log a flight? What info would you want to see on the map?

For context, I caught a queen at the beginning of October. I only found 1 and put it in a founding cup where it had laid eggs almost immediately. Unfortunately, over the next 2 weeks it didn't seem to have any fungus. I was able to find a seller of Atta texana and bought a small colony of about 30 workers which had some fungus. When that colony arrived in the mail the fungus was looking sad but nonetheless I donated a small pellet to my fungus absent queen. This was about 1 week ago. The 1st pic shows the pellet the day it was donated and accepted by the queen. The 2nd pic shows the fungal pellet right now. There is noticable fuzz now and things are looking up. I might have to donate more soon but the other colonies fungus is still recovering so I'll have to hold off, additionally, I might need to brood bost but wait for the same reasons. It's small and things are not looking good but I'm staying hopeful.

I'm brand new to ant keeping (day 4!) and confused about how much to feed them. I have 1 queen and 9 workers harvester ants. It's about 95 in the warmest part of the colony. I have a little packet of seeds and also some meal worms. How much is enough? I know I'm supposed to remove the trash, but I'm having trouble actually telling the seeds from the seed trash. Tips?

Detail:
I put in a little pile of seeds the first day and they have moved it around quite a bit, mostly pilling it on top of their water dispenser. Is that the trash pile? How can I tell?

Yesterday I gave them a meal worm, which generated a ton of activity, but I can't visibly tell if they've eaten it. Maybe my eyesight isn't good enough for this hobby?

(this pic doesn't show the test tube on the right with an additional water source)

Processing img 67cz8r2yo0yh1...

They're usually in an orange nest so their color doesn't contrast very well compared to a white background.

Species: Leptogenys elongata

Location: Houston, Texas, USA

Video recorded on Samsung Galaxy s25 Ultra

I got into making ant nests for myself and made way too many. I have to downsize a bit. If you're willing to pay for shipping, toss me what you think is a fair price and help me clear some of these out! Not a business. DM me for questions and if you're really interested in one, throw down a dibs comment

My guess so far is Camponotus, probably fasciatus. Found in West Java, Indonesia.

I was literally taking care of a queen of a species I still haven't identified, which I already know for sure is a queen because she has shed her wings, when I suddenly look at the ground and I'm THIS close to STEPPING on what looks like a Camponotus queen (I'm assuming that because she's pretty big and genuinely looks like a queen based on my extremely shallow and limited knowledge, so sorry if I'm wrong).

Can anyone confirm if that's actually what it is?? I left her in the dark to check tomorrow later on if she has laid eggs.

I'm starting a community based on this Chrome extension because I think it's so insane
r/AntFarmIdle All the fricken upgrades are actual evolutionary aspects of ants, and it's just an entire colony that runs while you have your browser open. If you're a fan of ants at all, I'd download https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ant-farm-idle/hcjmnnhfmcadaijhbneklpohncleicoc JUST TO BE CLEAR THIS IS NOT AN ADVERTISMENT, IM JUST REALLY EXCITED

An older video of my Trachymyrmex colony!

I'm starting the hobby now. I thought this is what I believe is a queen of dorymermex. Is there a possibility of being? (I was looking for any queens here at home so I only took these photos. Sorry if it got bad)

Hey! I’m looking for firsthand advice on Myrmecia nigriceps: feeding, setup, temperature, moisture, and everyday care.
If you’ve kept them, what worked for you? What went wrong, and what would you do differently? Even one tip or a photo of your setup would be a big help!
I have 1 queen, 2 workers, and 1 cocoon.

I just wanted to post an update on my Atta texana colony I had received in the mail after next day shipping. Shipping lasted 1 day and when they arrived the fungus looked pretty sad. There was no white in it and it looked grey and black. I immediately put them in a set up with a hygrometer and maintained their humidity at 99% and temperature between 76f and 81f. I provided them with oats which they took immediately. I tried to introduce honey mesquite leaves and orange tree leaves but they never touched them. They only started taking esperanza flowers yesterday which is day 5. On a side note, they arr native to my area so I'm trying to use native plants. The photos show the before and after of the fungus. The first picture is day 1 when they arrived and pic 2 is day 6. The fungus has bounced back a bit and I will continue updating this sub on my colony. Atta texana posts are strangely sparse in this sub.

Found a colony of these near my house, I live on the middle of Brazil

Looking to have a discussion on these two nests. I currently have my two colonys in AC Hybrid Mini Nests but have been interested in Wakooshi.

Wakooshi

- Gen 4 Medium ($25) (~4in×4in)

- Gen 4 XL ($77) (~8in×8in)

Ants Canada

- Hybrid Mini (~$28) (4in×4in)

- Hybrid Nest (~$54) (8in×8in)

These nests are very close to the same size making for a good comparison.

The Wakooshi medium is a few $ cheaper then the AC mini but the XL is >$20 more the the AC Hybrid nest. Most peoples reason for hating the AC is price but they are close to the same Wakooshi is more if you want a cover. I haven't heard any major hate for Wakooshi.

Ants Canada Pros

- Easy hydration medium swap

- Spot for heating cable

- Includes a cover

Wakooshi Pros

- Gypsum allows for better humidity coverage

- Easier additions that connect together

Ants Canada Cons

- Glass needs to be glued for some species

- The plugs can be chewed through by some species

- Humidity can be hard to set right

Wakooshi Cons

- Cover is an extra cost

- Some species will dig through the gypsum

- Some species can escape where two nests joins

Ive also been wondering how well the Wakooshi handles heating. My Ants have been putting all there brood right where the heating cable is and Iam wondering if they just cant get enough heat. Iam thinking the Wakooshi would be better with a heat mat instead of a cable like the AC.