Iberian funnel ant
Aphaenogaster senilis
Temperature
22–27 °C
Humidity
40–60 %
Hibernation
December – February
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.
Check it yourself
General guidance from the usual beginner references — treat it as a starting point, not as a rule your colony has agreed to.