Iberian funnel ant

Aphaenogaster senilis

Where it comes from

Range

The Iberian Peninsula and North Africa

Size

Workers 5–9 mm, queen 9–11 mm

Queens

One queen, replaced from the workers' own brood if she dies

Keeping them

Diet

Insects, seeds and sugar water

Founding

Fully claustral — the queen needs no food until her first workers

Brood development

Egg to worker in roughly 6–8 weeks at 25 °C

Nest

Mostly dry, with a small damp area — they tolerate a wide swing

Wintering

12–15 °C, and they keep eating through it

Long-legged, quick and famous for dropping bits of leaf or soil into liquid food and carrying the soaked crumbs home — one of the few ants that uses tools.

Starting a colony

If you start from a lone queen, house her the way you would any claustral queen: a test tube with water at the back behind a plug of cotton wool, the queen in the dry front half, and a loose plug at the opening. She lives on her own reserves until her first workers arrive. Keep the tube warm and dark and leave it alone. At 25 °C, egg to worker takes roughly 6–8 weeks.

In the wild, though, most new colonies of this species start differently: a nest splits, and part of the workers walk off with a young queen to set up elsewhere. A queen with a group of workers of her own is therefore the easier way in, and such a colony gets going much faster than a queen alone.

Feeding

Aphaenogaster senilis eats almost anything: insects first of all, but also seeds and sugar water. The workers are long-legged and quick, and they find food fast. Give insects whenever there is brood — fruit flies, crickets, cut mealworms — and a few small seeds and some sugar water alongside.

Liquid food comes with a twist. This is one of the few ants known to use tools: instead of drinking from a drop, workers drop bits of soil, sand or leaf into it, wait for them to soak up the liquid, and carry the soaked crumbs home. Offer sugar water on a small dish they can reach, and expect to find it full of sand. Clean the dish often, because a dish of soaked debris goes off quickly.

The nest

A mostly dry nest with a small damp area suits it, and it tolerates a wide swing in humidity better than most species. Ytong, plaster and acrylic all work, and so do nests filled with a sand-and-loam mix. Keep the temperature at 22–27 °C; in most homes that means a heat mat or heat cable under one end of the nest, never under all of it.

Workers are 5–9 mm long, fast and good climbers, so the outworld needs a barrier along the top — PTFE (Fluon) or a thin film of paraffin oil — and a lid. They will also use any loose material in the outworld for their dipping, so a little sand there gives them something to work with. A colony grows to a few thousand workers.

Hibernation

This species takes a mild rest from December to February at 12–15 °C, in a cool room or an unheated hallway rather than a fridge. Unlike most ants in their winter rest, they keep eating through it, so keep offering small amounts of food, and keep the water topped up. Lower the temperature over a couple of weeks in autumn and raise it gradually in spring.

Common mistakes

• Leaving a food dish full of soaked debris until it goes off.
• A nest that is damp all the way through.
• Treating the winter as a fast. This species keeps eating.
• An outworld without a barrier. These are quick climbers.
• Wintering it in a fridge.

Questions keepers ask

Do they really use tools? Yes. The behaviour has been studied in this genus and described in the scientific literature. It lets a worker carry more liquid in one trip than she could hold in her crop.

What happens if the queen dies? In the wild, the workers can raise a new queen from the brood, which is unusual among ants. In a closed setup that is not something to count on, because a new queen still has to mate.

How long until the first workers? About 6–8 weeks at 25 °C, and longer when it is cooler.

Is it a good species to start with? It is rated intermediate mainly because it needs warmth and an escape-proof setup. If you want a Mediterranean ant that is a little more forgiving, Messor barbarus is a good alternative.

Check it yourself

• AntWiki: Aphaenogaster senilis

General guidance from the usual beginner references — treat it as a starting point, not as a rule your colony has agreed to.

Start a colony with this species

Similar species

• Camponotus barbaricus Mediterranean carpenter ant

  The Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, in dry open country

  24–28 °C 50–70 %

  Intermediate
• Crematogaster scutellaris Acrobat ant

  The Mediterranean basin, in dead wood and cork bark

  24–28 °C 50–70 %

  Intermediate
• Messor barbarus Harvester ant

  The Iberian Peninsula, southern France and North Africa

  24–28 °C 40–60 %

  Beginner
• Messor structor European harvester ant

  Southern and central Europe eastwards into central Asia

  24–28 °C 40–60 %

  Beginner

All 21 species in the guide