Creating an ant farm at home or office is becoming increasingly popular. Unpretentious harvester ants are best suited for this. Before getting these insects, it is worth familiarizing yourself with their species characteristics: way of life, habitat, exterior, characteristics of reproduction and maintenance.
General information about the genus Messor
The genus Messor includes 110 species of ants adapted to life in the desert zone on almost all continents. Thus, 30 species live in Europe alone, 5 of them in Russia. This:
- Messor aciculatus;
- Messor denticulatus;
- Messor kasakorum;
- Messor rufitarsis;
- Messor constructor.
The genus received the name Messor (reaper) due to the method of collecting grain from the fields. The specificity of nutrition is determined by the nature of vegetation in the desert climate. According to research, ants from one family are able to bring up to 1.5 kg of grain to underground storage facilities. The answer to the question: is the harvester ant a pest that steals the fruits of human labor should be answered in the negative. He harvests his harvest only from the ground, from already damaged spikelets. The grains are stored in moist underground chambers for a long time and periodically germinate. Then the ants chew off the seedlings, and the seeds themselves are ground into powder, moistened with saliva and fed to the larvae.
Reaper ants have their own characteristics:
- large size of individuals;
- peacefulness;
- swarming, nest building in spring.
Let us consider this genus in more detail using the example of the species Messor structor (steppe harvester ant).
Description and features of the Messor constructor type
The steppe harvester ant is the largest among other ants of the subfamily Myrmicinae. The color is dark, reddish-brown. The length of the working insect varies from 4 to 9 mm, the queen – up to 11-15 mm. The body consists of three parts: head, chest, abdomen, connected to each other by jumpers, due to which insects are flexible and mobile. The massive square head of the ant is equipped with jaws-mandibles, which, when bitten, close like a trap. This is convenient for carrying food and crushing grains.
This is interesting: the terrifying jaws of the harvester ant are not an attack weapon, but a device for processing grain.
The workers have stingers that they use for self-defense. Ants are clumsy and slow; When irritated, they choose to run away. The species is characterized by sexual polymorphism, that is, the presence of different forms of individuals: females, males, workers, soldiers and transitional forms. Each category of harvester ants performs its duties.
When studying the question of how long harvester ants live, information was obtained that the worker lives up to 3-5 years, and the queen lives up to 20 years.
Reapers live in families of up to 5,000 individuals. The ground part of the anthill looks like a hole, surrounded by a rampart of earth and debris from the grains brought in. Under the ground, the nest looks like an extended vertical tunnel, with passages with cameras running off the sides. The family has been using one house for several years.
Brief information
Name in Latin: Messor structor Difficulty: for beginners Size of individuals: M - workers from 4 to 9 mm, soldiers up to 11 mm, queen up to 12 mm Size of colonies: up to 5,000 individuals Habitat: steppes and semi-deserts, from Portugal to Kazakhstan, and south to Iran Temperature: 23-25 degrees, preferably warmed up Humidity: gradient, from 30% in the arena to 90% in the nest Diet: plant seeds, dead insects Wintering: not required
Appearance of harvester ants and their habitat
The body of insects consists of three parts - the head, thorax and abdomen. They are connected to each other by movable jumpers, which makes the reapers very flexible. There are three pairs of limbs on the chest. The large head has powerful jaws - mandibles, which are convenient for carrying food and grinding seeds and grains. The color of the ants is dark, reddish-brown. Their length is considered one of the largest among other families of ants: worker ants have a length of 4 to 9 mm, while the queen reaches truly enormous sizes - from 11 to 15 mm.
The steppe ant differs from other representatives of the ant family by its characteristic reddish-orange color
Harvester ants live in steppes, semi-deserts and deserts in Asia, North and South Africa and America.
Messor kasakorum
often confused with the previous species, but they still have differences. If you do not examine the hairs and other small details under a microscope, then Casacorum is not such a bright denticulatus, in the color of which the glossy black cover of the head and abdomen becomes matte, and the color of the chest of some is brown.
Sometimes the two-color color may not appear for a very long time; most often large workers have it, while the rest are simply black.
How is an anthill organized?
Up to 5 thousand individuals can live in an anthill
In a colony of harvester ants there is a strict hierarchy: each family member is busy with his own business. The family consists of a queen - she produces offspring, soldiers - they protect the anthill from dangers and help with harvesting, worker ants - they are engaged in obtaining food and caring for the young. There are also males and females - they mate with each other, creating new colonies.
From the outside, the anthill's shape resembles a volcano
The ground part of the ants' home is a hole in the soil, along the edges of which there is a shaft of earth and debris from the prey they bring. The underground part has a vertical tunnel, from which passages with cameras extend on the sides. In these rooms, ants set up pantries for storing food and “children’s rooms” in which they store larvae.
insect family
In the ant hierarchy, the role of each individual is strictly regulated. Already from birth it becomes known who is good for what.
- At the head of the hierarchy is the queen, the queen. Once fertilized, the female reproduces eggs throughout her life. Her body size is larger than the rest of the society.
- The largest clan is the worker ants. One half is engaged in searching, replenishing supplies, and building an anthill, the other half is engaged in raising offspring and keeping order inside the chambers.
- Another part of the ant family is young females and males. After fertilization, each young female leaves the family, looks for a suitable place, and gives life to a new generation. The males, having completed their main function, die within a week.
A photo of a large family is located below. Ant family The life cycle of each individual individual is slightly different, starting from the moment of birth. According to scientific research, the female lives about 25 years. Ants that are engaged in obtaining food last about 5 years. Working individuals that raise offspring inside the anthill - 3 years.
Habitat
The steppe harvester ant is a resident of the steppes and deserts. Its nests can be found in the countries of the Mediterranean coast, Southern and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Middle and Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. On the territory of Russia, in the Republic of Tatarstan, the species is included in the Red Book due to the threat of extinction.
Years
Reapers are ants of deserts and steppes. Such a life developed an interesting feature in them. Almost all species of ants we encounter raise young males and females in the spring, so that by the end of spring or summer they can fly away and give rise to new colonies. The Messors have a completely different strategy: young individuals capable of reproducing are raised not in May, but in August. Next, the winged generation overwinters in its native anthill and flies out by the end of April. At a time when the queens of other ants are still in the larval state, messoras are already beginning to raise the first generation of new workers. It would seem, why such oddities? The answer is simple: in steppes and semi-deserts, the most favorable conditions for the creation of new colonies appear in the spring, when the average daily temperature is not so high and soil moisture remains.
Messor ebeninus
has long been the butt of jokes due to the transcription of the species name, but in reality it alludes to color (“ebeninus” - “ebony”, having the color of ebony). These reapers live in the countries of the Middle East, from where they are periodically brought to us.
They inhabit deserts, feeling great there. They have adapted to feed on dry seeds, managing to extract an insignificant amount of water from there, and they dig their anthills to the groundwater level.
What do harvester ants eat?
Particular attention should be paid to the feeding and extraction of food by the reapers. Since they most often feed on grain crops, ants were long thought to be agricultural pests. However, research has shown that insects only harvest crops that directly fall to the ground.
Reserves
The gathering of provisions is very interesting among the reapers. As stated earlier, the harvesting of grain occurs when it is on the ground.
The workforce collects about 1.5 kg of grain crops from the fields in one season
Scientists have found that harvester ants send out workers as much as there is available food. If there is a lot of it, then the workers return faster and the number of ants sent for food increases. But if they return slowly, then the number of ants sent out decreases or stops altogether.
To store grain, hardworking reapers set up special rooms deep underground. In damp, warm rooms, the seeds begin to germinate, and as soon as the first sprouts and roots appear, the ants immediately destroy the shoots. After this, large soldier ants grind the grain into powder with their powerful jaws and, moistening it with saliva, feed this mixture to the larvae.
Reproduction
Living conditions even affected the breeding habits of reapers. Most ants raise sexually mature individuals by late spring or early summer. Reapers emerge in late summer, spend the winter in the nest, and begin breeding in April. This gives them the opportunity to build an anthill under favorable conditions, while the steppe soil is not dry and the ambient temperature is not yet so high.
Each harvester ant nest contains one queen. At the stage of nest formation there may be several of them, but then the ants expel or eat the extra ones. The males, having fertilized the female, die.
The harvester ant is an insect with a full development cycle: egg, larva, pupa, adult. The first three stages take up to 2-3 weeks each. Reaper ants are characterized by two methods of reproduction: asexual and sexual. Asexual is represented by parthenogenesis, it leads to the birth of worker ants. In the sexual method, males and females are born.
Messor minor
widespread from Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean, it is also found in India. The minor is small, but a very bright and beautiful reaper. Soldiers in families of this species are rare, but polymorphism is still noticeable.
Minors move quickly, mobilize to feeding areas quite quickly, can aggressively attack feeding insects and are generally more active than many of their comrades.
How long does a queen ant live?
So how long does a queen ant live? Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to give an exact answer to this question: it very much depends on the type of insect. There are species whose queens live for as long as not every cat or dog can live - 20 years... Just think about this figure! True, female pharaoh ants, which people most often want to get rid of, are still not record long-livers: their life expectancy is a maximum of 2 years under favorable conditions.
By the way
Red ants are a species that is often found in the middle zone, but in natural conditions, and not indoors. This is a completely different species and is not related to domestic pest ants.
On average, the queens of a colony live about 10 years, which is many times longer than the life expectancy of an ordinary worker, but do not think that the queen ant is the center of the universe for the colony. It is the ordinary worker ant that regulates the life of the anthill, so these hard workers can easily kill an unwanted queen if her productivity has dropped significantly or one of several queens is currently redundant.
And yes, there are often several queens in ant colonies: they can remain in the family in which they appeared, or they can move out, forming a new colony. This is why house pharaoh ants are so difficult to deal with: once you destroy one nest, you leave others untouched, the existence of which you may not even suspect.
Messor barbarus
— the structure of this species resembles capitatus and was previously considered as its subspecies, however, it lacks wonderful parthenogenesis and differs in color. The soldiers' heads have a beautiful burgundy hue, the same color as the queens.
The queens of barbarus can be colored differently; in some, red shades predominate even over black, which makes their appearance very remarkable. Such morphs are worth their weight in gold by myrmekeepers, but is there any point in chasing colored queens if the workers are all the same color?
Some interesting facts
- Some of the species of these arthropods can remain under water without access to air for 4 days, as if in a preserved state. Once removed from the liquid, they come to life again and continue to exist.
- The ant's legs (there are 6 of them, and each has 3 joints) are very strong. They seem to be designed by nature for heavy work and moving loads. By the way, if this insect were as tall as humans, then, in proportion to its physical characteristics, it could run at speeds of up to 60 kilometers per hour and lift loads of one and a half tons!
- Ants, according to some researchers, have a collective intelligence, and the total number of their brain cells (for a single anthill) is comparable to the number of the same cells in humans.
Larval development
Individuals take care of the eggs, move them to separate chambers, and ensure that favorable conditions are maintained. Division into castes occurs already during the hatching of the larvae. Which of them will be who in society depends on the amount of food consumed.
The larvae are not able to move or eat independently. All this is provided by breadwinners and caregivers. The young are constantly increasing in size and pupate after 1-2 months. The pupa does not have a dense shell; the development of insects can be monitored. At the last stage, it begins to move and a full-fledged insect appears.
Complete transformation
In the anthill, life is vibrant and constantly renewed. Like any insect, this forest orderly goes through a series of transformations in its life. Moreover, the stages of his life differ significantly functionally and externally. There are four known stages of ant development:
- egg;
- larva;
- chrysalis;
- adult (imago).
That is, all varieties of ants belong to insects with a complete cycle of transformation, which is called holometaboly. As a rule, in most species the entire development process takes about a month.
Messor aciculatus
- one of the smallest reapers (workers 5-6 mm in length), living in the Far East, China, and some other Asian regions. This messor... monomorphic! That is, the soldiers that we value so much in other species are absent here.
However, Aciculatus has one important quality that most Messors lack. This is multi-queenity. Yes, yes, such reapers are polygynous; their colonies can have dozens of productive fertilized queens, replacing each other as needed. This is why aciculatus is valued by myrmekeepers, because the fear of losing the colony in the event of the death of the queen recedes here - it is divided by the number of fertilized queens.
How long do ants live in natural conditions?
Here, too, we will not find a single and correct answer; it all depends on the specific type. We can look at the example of the three species that are best known to us, namely red forest, reapers and pharaohs. So, working insects of forest and reaper insects live up to 5 years, and their queens live up to 25 years, these are colossal numbers. And if we consider the life expectancy of pharaonic working individuals, then their life cycle is only 2 months.
Of course, life expectancy also depends on the direct responsibilities of the insect, namely, what functions it performs in the colony. If this is a goosebump that cares for larvae, is responsible for storing food, and digs tunnels, it has every chance of living a full life cycle. But if this individual delivers food or defends the colony, the chances are much lower; more often they live for several months.
It is worth mentioning one more feature of such families. The thing is, worker creeps don't have to be male. Often these are females who have a suppressed reproductive system. In other words, they, like the queen, can lay eggs, with the only difference that they will not be fertilized and only males can emerge from such clutches.
But the role of males in the colony is absolutely unenviable. The fact is that they exist only to fertilize the female and that’s where their role in the life of the colony ends. Their life cycle most often does not exceed several weeks. Nature deprived them of time, but gave them wings. It is in flight that fertilization occurs, which is the main purpose of their existence.
As you can see, the life expectancy of each species is different and we will not get a definite answer. But it is worth noting a trend that works not only in ants, but also in most animals: the larger the species, we are talking about size, the longer the life expectancy.
What and how to feed a colony of reapers
It is not necessary to feed the queen before the first workers and soldiers appear.
, but if you want, you can put a piece of nut or seed at the very entrance to the test tube and immediately close the exit with a cotton swab.
In nature, the species of ants Messor Messor Miticus (formerly Structor) uses for food mainly the seeds of field plants, which are contained in a special food for these insects, supplied in a set for beginners, which includes a queen, an acrylic formicarium and a year's supply of food, and they are also easily collect from food for small forest birds, one pack of which will last the ants for a hundred years. This food usually contains poppy seeds, rapeseed, thistle, millet grains and other types of seeds. You need to use tweezers to pick out a few seeds from the food and give them to the colony to see what they like and what they don’t.
After the appearance of the first individuals, you can start feeding
. At the same time, it is important to understand that the first supply of food is also stressful, so after placing the food at the entrance to the test tube, put the colony back in a dark place. Over time, it will become clear which seeds the reapers prefer - their quantity in the diet must be increased.
Also, in order for the colony to grow and develop, animal protein is needed. For the first time, a non-aggressive witch doctor beetle larva is suitable, and if the workers do not have enough strength to cope with it, it is possible to lightly press down the larva before sending it into the test tube. Animal protein is the building material for colony growth, so it is better to feed one larva at least once a week.
Buying ants and tips for choosing a farm
You can buy harvester ants for the formicarium in a special online store. The cost is quite affordable - approximately 900 rubles. Most often, a colony includes 10 workers and one queen. Some stores offer the opportunity to choose a family - there are options of 50 individuals.
Usually, for a home ant farm, it is recommended to purchase harvesters, since they are large in size and not very demanding when it comes to food.
Features of feeding
At home, reapers eat sunflower, poppy or pumpkin seeds. In addition, you can take a canary mixture, the ingredients of which are cereals and seeds of various types of vegetation. You should not choose grain intended for sowing, since it is treated with special compounds that have a detrimental effect on ants - there is a risk of death.
You can purchase mealworms, cockroaches or crickets as protein foods. Please note that chicken meat and yolk also have a negative effect on insects.
To organize a drinking bowl for ants, buy a small test tube, then fill it with water and tightly close the hole with cotton wool - it will be moistened with water and will become an excellent source of liquid in the formicarium. Please note that the plug must be changed when dirty, as there is a risk of mold developing inside the farm.
Messor aegyptiacus
behavior and coloration resembles the previous species, but exceeds it in size. Egypt, Israel, Morocco are the typical habitats of reapers, which are not without reason called Egyptian.
Egyptians are typical for deserts, where they are content with meager gifts of nature: seeds of cereal grasses and sun-dried insect corpses, but at home their diet is much more varied, where they can quickly master the basics of collective hunting and defeat cockroaches and crickets. Powerful big-headed soldiers play an important role in this process.
How to keep harvester ants at home
Nowadays, many people, as a hobby, start so-called ant farms, which are transparent boxes made of plastic or glass. Inside them there is an imitation of an anthill - numerous passages and chambers.
Thanks to the transparency of the walls, it is possible to study the life of insects in detail.
Purchasing an anthill - what kinds of anthills there are, their cost
A home anthill, or formicarium, looks like an aquarium or a display case with filler inside. There are simple and complex systems in which a climate favorable for the life and reproduction of ants is automatically created and maintained: lighting, humidity and temperature. There are different sizes - from small tabletop farms to bulky anthills for the living room or office. Various fillers are used for formicaria: gel, gypsum or a mixture of soil and sand.
The so-called “Cubus” and “Colosseum” models are shaped like a cylinder, cube or double-walled display. The space between them is filled with multi-colored sand, in which the ant colony builds passages and chambers. The cost of such structures is high - from 3 thousand rubles, but the kits include food for ants, sand and other additions.
Formicarium brand "Colosseum"
An anthill with a gel filler is similar to an aquarium, but is filled not with water, but with a transparent gel. Such a house for reapers does not require careful maintenance, but once every 5–7 days the lid of the aquarium must be opened for a couple of minutes for ventilation. The price of such formicariums is low - from 500 rubles.
This filler is safe for people and insects - it is both a habitat and a breeding ground for ants
A plaster truss is affordable in price (from 700 rubles). This is the most popular type of domestic anthill. The surface of the gypsum is often painted in bright colors, which makes formicariums a stylish and unusual addition to any interior.
The plaster model is perfect for children and beginners in ant breeding.
Ant houses can be purchased in specialized online stores. The catalogs contain farms of various models and sizes. As a rule, pet stores do not sell ant farms.
Making a formicarium yourself
If you are not attracted by prices in stores, then there is the opportunity to make a formicarium with your own hands. For the base, you can take two jars with transparent walls - a large and a small one - and then fill the space between them with the selected material. It can be a mixture of soil and sand, gypsum or gel.
Soil-sand farm
To begin, prepare a mixture of one part sand and two parts soil. Make sure that the composition is slightly damp - it will be easier for ants to break through passages and chambers. The mixture will be needed so much that the space between the jars is filled 1.5 cm from the edge of the vessels. Make small holes in the lid for air circulation.
Gel farm
Making such a farm yourself will be interesting for both adults and children. To do this, you will need gelatin and a flat container with a lid and transparent walls.
Pour three 15 gram bags of gelatin into 0.5 liters of hot water and stir well until the gelatin dissolves. Then add another 0.5 liters of water. Cool the resulting composition, pour into a container of your choice and place in the refrigerator until completely solidified. Then remove the container and wait for the mass to warm to room temperature. Since the gel composition is also food, there is no need to feed the ants in such an anthill - they will get the necessary food from their house.
