Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok, ill start this post off with a pic of my sikorae tank... just cleaned it out and redid it the other day. looks a lil bare till the pothos reacts to the light and orients itself. surprisingly these guys like the thinner branches more than the thick mossy corkbark branch running across the top half of the cage. anyhow, these two are doing great.

np

this is where i keep my longest term captives, and my geckos have taken to this one real great, although this was the one i had some escaping from, so i recently made my own screen top for it. possibly gonna make that top into a lil bit of an extension like i did for my henkeli. anyway, theres 2 pieces of cork bark at the back which i wedged together to make a fake stump (i do that in a lot of my enclosures), a small ficus, some pothos, and a few other small plants. recently added some oak leaves to the bottom to see if my female will lay any eggs under them. the dimensions of the tank are 3'x1'x1.5', the extension im thinking of will probably make it about a foot taller.

starting about 2 weeks ago, i started finding these small ants with shovel-shaped heads that i have never seen before. i have no clue where they're coming from, never seen them in the wild in north carolina, and i always shake off the dirt that comes with my plants, but that is the only real source i can think they came from. i've found probably a total of 5 in the past 2 weeks, and i always find them around the top of the cage, i have never spotted them in the substrate. since we have a few invert people around here i thought i would ask. i have tried looking them up with no luck so far. i also tried to see how their bite is, and it almost seems like they dont bite at all. however, if i roll them around in my fingers, they give off a hint of the smell of windex - and no i havent been doing any spring cleaning yet so thats not where its coming from. any help?

oh yea, and my female henkeli is gravid with another pair of eggs again. somehow i went from having like 4 eggs last season to something like 15 and counting this season. granted, i've expanded my collection considerably in the past year....

Sounds like a it's just a household odor ant. Harmless, unless they get ahold of your pinhead patch. I couldnt find one that looked like that in my insect key though.
By the way Umop, How long does it take your baby Henkels to eat after they hatch

sorry i cant help you there, the eggs im incubating presently are my first clutch. ive been told they take around 150 days on average.

yeah this guy was laid 11/7/04 and hatched about five or six days ago. its sibling was a dud egg though. i got a little too anxious and poked a hole(in the air space) in the egg about three weeks ago and saw it still alive. it was only occupying about 3/5 of the egg volume. so what i did was cover the hole with glad press and seal and it hatched about two weeks later

sorry guys "layed"

My baby Henkeli have eaten about 2-3 days after hatching. I did have one eat a cricket the night of hatching though. Just keep food available for them and they will eat when they are ready!! Erik

exactly like i said... and also this thread might be helpful...
Link

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Ben

Sorry, and when the links don't load, click on "try 2004 archives" and then they should...
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Ben

Would you be willing to send me some of those ants? I am positive that they are not odorous house ants, but the picture is not clear and I unable to identify them. I would be more than willing to reimburse you for shipping. Email me and put “ANTS” in the subject line.

Spud
spudlicious@hotmail.com

Further research has brought me to the genus Cephalotes (turtle ants). Do the pics on the site below match what you are seeing? If so, then I would really, really like to get a few of those ants!!! If they are turtle ants then they are arboreal and probably came in on sticks that you may have in your enclosures. PLEASE...EMAIL ME!!!

http://www.myrmecos.net/myrmicinae/cephalotes.html

i love them all. i'm no help on your little ant friend though.... but that is a good picture of it, so hopefully someone will stumble upon it and be able to ID it for you.