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Carpenter ants Camponotus fellah
64.99
Camponotus fellah is one of Africa's biggest ants, known for its high activity outside the nest and during food hunts. They're quite feisty towards other ants and if you disturb their home! This massive, super-active and aggressive ant species is found all over Northern Africa and the Middle East. How exciting! Camponotus fellah colonies live on land and often burrow deep underground in steppe and semi-desert areas. As the colony grows, large majors with powerful jaws develop, just like other Camponotus species. These impressive worker ants can grow almost as big as the queen, reaching 16-18mm. Wow!
The Camponotus fellah ant colony has one queen and grows quickly. It can have up to 15,000 members. The ants are very polymorphic and come in different sizes: queens are 17-20mm, workers 5-9mm, and majors 10-18mm. They are black to dark brown or brown, with reddish-brown legs. But it takes years for colonies to reach such large sizes as they grow rather slowly. These unique ants are active all day.
What the scientists discovered recently is that all Camponotus species have a type of bacteria (for immune benefits) in a mutual relationship, it's been noticed that new queens need this bacteria to start their colony successfully. Queens without it are more likely to be attacked by nasties like phorid flies!
To help colonies thrive, keep them quite warm at 25-28°C and moderately humid at 50-60%.
Ant farm requirements: Humidity: outworld: 50%; nest: 50 - 60%. Temperature: outworld: 22 - 30°C; nest: 25- 28°C. You must use a heating mat here in the UK. Isn't ant-keeping fascinating?
Recommended food: They munch on a wide range of insects like crickets and mealworms, fruit flies and roaches, and love syrup made from distilled/purified water and organic honey.
Claustral founding (without feeding) but we recommend feeding the queen honey once every two weeks.
From egg to adult worker, the process takes about 6-8 weeks:
Egg to Larvae: roughly 14 days
Larvae to Pupae: approximately 12-17 days
Pupae to a worker: around 21-30 days (temperature dependent, the higher the temperature the faster)
The main activity period is from April to September.
Amazingly, the Camponotus fellah queen's lifespan is up to 29 years!