Camponotus angusticollis

Camponotus angusticollis Queen

This is my entry log for my Camponotus angusticollis colony.

Camponotus angusticollis worker

Camponotus angusticollis is an ant species found in South and Southeast Asia (Borneo, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka) and although not showing up on AntMaps.org, it is also found in China.

AntMaps.org - Camponotus angusticollis

It is actually China’s biggest carpenter ant species (窄颈弓背蚁), being even bigger than Camponotus singularis. The distribution of this ant in China, is restricted to the region of Yunnan.

Because of their immense size, they were once synonym with Dinomyrmex, as Dinomyrmex angusticollis.

Camponotus angusticollis on the left and Dinomyrmex gigas on the right. Not my photo, actually don’t remember who belongs to. So if the owner is reading this, please let me know so I can credit you here.

Early last year (2021) I received 2 new queens, and it was the first time keeping this species. I was very excited. There were two variants being sold. One for red queens and another for black queens.

Quickly after receiving the first two (red) queens, I decided that these ants were too good looking to be left out, and I ordered another two (black) queens.

Camponotus angusticollis (black vs red) Queens

Not to make this whole post very long and because many months have passed since then, I will quickly shorten and update you on what happened.

Basically, I received them all inside test tubes., but to be honest it seemed they were uncomfortable, always slipping due to the glass, and almost laying down on their sides.

So I changed them to these 3d printed nests with water towers.

It solved one problem but it created another problem. The queens started to become stressed, eating the eggs, or leaving them to rot. And soon after they started to die. One by one. After 2 months I think I had lost all.

So I spoke with one of the sellers he recommend I should get another queen and have her inside a bamboo type tube. And so I did. Of course, since some time had passed since the flights of these queens, the ones still available were a little bit developed. So the new red queen I got, already came with couple of pupae.

And so this brings us up to today, as you can see the colony is doing great, the pupae eclosed and the colony started growing like crazy. The bamboo tube seem ideal for this species. It has a water reservoir in the back allowing all the necessary humidity to be present within the nest as well as provide the space and grip that the ant queen needs.

The workers don’t seem to suffer from this condition though. They seem to be enjoying being everywhere.

Camponotus angusticollis colony

At this moment the colony has 1 red Queen and 16 workers and a ton of pupae, larvae and eggs.

They don’t seem to have been impacted by the lower winter temperatures, and have been continuously developing as you can see.

In normal Carpenter ants in overwintering conditions, it would be expected to find only larvae, but this is not the case, with the queen actively laying many eggs, and the brood continuously developing.

The colony seems very protein oriented, they never neglect any roach. The common feeding schedule includes 1 medium red runner every 2 or 3 days, with honey water constant supply.

Now I am patiently waiting for the first major to show up! That must be something special.

And now time to wrap the post, hope you have enjoyed this short post, thank you for reading, and cheers! See you next post!

Cheers!