Keeping the Green Tree Ant/ Weaver Ant Oecophylla smaragdina in captivity

[Zervoid]

I was actually thinking of keeping the Green Tree Ant aka The Weaver Ant as people overseas call them, Oecophylla smaragdina.

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This fascinating blog tells you a lot about them, http://termitesandants.blogspot.com.au/2010/04/oecophylla-smaragdina.html

And you can keep them in captivity, as this article shows, http://www.antweb.org/antblog/2014/10/weaver-ant-farming.html

My thinking is these ants would make perfect pets. They don't like to live in substrate, so would be fine living within an enclosure and weaving their own silk protective nests. They like sunlight and so can be kept in a bright room and observed during the day, and won't try and hide. They can be easily fed on water, sugar water, and protein. And the size of their colony is determined by the size of their container, so if I kept them in a medium sized critter keeper I could expect a small colony of ants without worrying about them growing too large.

The more research I do on these ants the more fascinating they become. They have been around for millions of years unchanged, and are bred by people in Thailand who sell the queen larva as food. So this makes me not feel bad about keeping them as at least I know the Queen I had collected hasn't ended up as a meal lol. They are seen as biological control by some people, and to others they are a pest.

So I don't think it would be unethical to keep a Queen found in the wild before she establishes a nest, would it?

And the best thing is that they would be free. As they occur naturally here in Queensland. Although I would have to find out if it is legal to keep them here. I can't see why it wouldn't be. I used to see them as a child when I lived further north and was always fascinated by them, but never imagined you could easily keep them as pets. I imagine they would be quite inexpensive to keep, only needing water, sugar and protein with maybe the odd vegetable or fruit.

The Queens of this species are beautiful, ranging from an indescribable vivid green, all the way through to browns and yellows.

These ants are highly intelligent and display many novel behaviors, they seem like the perfect pets for insect lovers.

 

[Hisserdude]

Well they would instantly escape from a critter keeper, and if they get in any other cages they will KILL anything in it. But if you kept them in an escape proof airtight cage, then I can see these being fun!

 

[Zervoid]

I would place a coating of Vaseline around the top perimeter of their enclosure to stop them escaping. Here is what I have found out about ants so far.

Ants don't take protein unless they have some brood, and it only needs to be offered once a week or once every two weeks. Protein is used to feed the larvae and is given to the Queen so she can produce eggs, as only the larvae can digest solids such as solid protein, which are then shared by the colony. More is explained about this in the links below.

http://blog.wildaboutants.com/2010/06/21/question-1-ant-digestion/

I did investigate a more ethical approach to keeping them where I didn't kill anything. That included using this invertebrate pellet made for Krill along with freeze dried blood worms and frozen crickets.

http://www.theaquariumshop.com.au/shopexd.asp?id=4609&name=New Life Spectrum Crustacean Formula 70g

I read about a study where researches provided these ants with supplement feeding on a Cashew plantation to boost their numbers, and they fed them fish and sugar water separately. So perhaps those fish based shrimp pellets would be an ok source of protein, as it is all derived from fish, and didn't seem to harm the colony in the study. http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/publica...ts(9b7cd2cd-b8ed-43d9-849e-7bbfee1cc7b8).html

There is a place online selling cricket flour here which I thought could be a clean protein alternative. http://www.ediblebugshop.com.au/p/8919994/cricket-super-powder-200g.html

Some people mention feeding them protein jelly, which I am assuming is gelatin. Some people also mention feeding them a 50/50 mix of water/ maple syrup mixed with chocolate flavored whey protein, while others have said to be careful about using milk products.

I also found this page which tells you how to make a substance very similar to honeydew, using liquid amino acids (BCAA) http://www.antfinity.com/keeping-ants-2/honeydew-surrogate/

Some people have reported good results with hard boiled egg yolk, while others use meat products. But egg and meat products should be used carefully as they spoil quickly and contain large amounts of fats not found in their insect diet. Also some people find potato can kill them.

I also read these weaver ants naturally live on citrus and Mango trees, and are actually the only pollinators of trees on the Cape York Peninsular here in Australia as there are no bee pollinators living there. So I guess feeding them citrus such as oranges and lemons, along with Mango would also be a good way to feed them sugars properly and give them some variety every now and again. Apparently ants love variety.

Also if they are suffering mites apparently offering them citrus such as lemon will allow them to kill the mites.

Here is another interesting study done with the African variety of these ants and gives you an insight into their dietary habits http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4429428/

I have read that beginners should stick to feeding them water, sugar water and insects. This is probably what I will do if I decide to have a go at owning these, maybe with the odd piece of fruit supplemented.

---------- Post added 09-10-2015 at 01:55 AM ----------

In asia people keep these ants the way we keep bees. In fact this ant is the oldest known form of biological control, and has had a relationship with people in southern China for a very long time. It seems to respond well to domestication. And the thing is they seem to be very easy to keep, I think because this species is very clean. You can see an ant farm set up from Indonesia here.

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It's probably irresponsible of me to keep these as pets. Unless I kept them in a container that limited the colony size, as apparently they won't allow their colony to grow large if they are kept in limited space.

 

[Zervoid]

Here is a Queen during Physogastrism.

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This guy has a great set up going on!

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[Zervoid]

This video shows the husbandry requirements of the weaver ant by people who farm it in Indonesia.

After reading about how difficult this species is to keep on various ant forums overseas, I think the ant community is getting the husbandry requirements of this ant wrong. Instead of using test tubes to raise the ant, I think we should be using upside down plastic containers as shown in the video.This seems to make the ants thrive. The diet is very basic, sugar water, made with brown sugar, and a bit of protein in the form of meal worms.

I think people are failing with this ant because the test tubes don't breathe, so the ants are unable to regulate the internal humidity of the tubes themselves like they can with the upside down plastic containers with holes pricked in them.

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