weaver_ants
There are some rules in ant keeping that most ant keepers follow. The number one rule is to not buy exotic ants. Those ants could become invasive and destroy the whole ecosystem. Most ant keepers think that if they are responsible enough and careful enough, their ants will not escape. But you can’t stop them, and here’s why. Once a year, ants have this thing called nuptial flight when virgin male and female alates take to the air and mate with the males. The males all die the next day. But the females drop to the ground and break off their wings. Next, they make a tiny hole or burrow. This is the place where they will grow their ant colonies and the cycle continues. So, most ant keepers have open ant setups that are covered with a layer of baby powder to prevent the ants from escaping. But that only works for the crawling ants and not the flying ones. So, you have to make sure all the alates die in your room, which is hard and a little sad. Since they are being taken away from their native habitat. The habitat that they came from is also affected by their absence. With that, they went and the invasive started to thrive and destroy the ecosystem. We should only catch ants that are native to where we live.
