Acorn ant
Temnothorax nylanderi
Temperature
20–24 °C
Humidity
50–60 %
Hibernation
October – March
Where it comes from
- Range
- Western and central Europe, in woodland leaf litter
- Size
- Workers 2–3 mm, queen 3–4 mm
- Queens
- Usually one queen
Keeping them
- Diet
- Sugar water and small insects
- Founding
- Fully claustral — the queen needs no food until her first workers
- Brood development
- Egg to worker in roughly 6–8 weeks at 22 °C
- Nest
- A hollow acorn, a walnut or a very small nest — they want it tight
- Wintering
- 7–11 °C
A whole colony fits inside one acorn, which makes this the species to keep when you have no room for a formicarium. It never outgrows the shelf you put it on.
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.