Novomessor Albisetosus - Red Long legged Harvester
Similar to Cockerelli but slightly smaller, brighter in colour but has a shorter head.
While found in rather sparse desert like areas as well as woodland, Novomessor can travel vast distances in their conquest for food. They are extremely active, painful and frightfully aggressive too. They are found with nest entrances under stones and often surrounded by gravel.
Their nests are deep and have great gradients for controlling the scorching sun, this is needed in desert environments to find the water table and maintain humidity within the nest.
Everything about this species is finely tuned and designed for life under the sun. They prefer forraging in the evening and morning when its not so hot, they work individually for speed but in groups to bring larger prey to the nest as quickly as possible. They are very very fast in movement speed and they have great trail based forraging to bring back as much food in the shortest time possible.
They are a harvesting ant species but do not make ant bread and consume seeds directly, They are in fact well suited to all foods as they would scavange anything in the wild from seeds to insects, plant flesh to small animals who were not so lucky in the sun.
Colony Size
Excess of 6,000 workers
Monogyne - One queen per nest
Queen is semi claustral – she needs sugars and proteins as soon as larvae is present
Temperature
Heated 27 to 29 degrees
Humidity
60-75% in nest
Hibernation
Diapause for 2 or 3 months at 20 degrees.
Polymorphic (Different size casts)
No
Sting
No
Bite
Yes
Diet
Seeds, Nuts, Grains, proteins, Sugars, Water.
Nest Type
Natural, Ytong.
Size
Queen – 10mm
Worker - 6-8.5mm
Polymorphic - No
Novomessor Albisetosus - Red Long legged Harvester
It is illegal to release this colony into the wild in the UK, if you can no longer care for your colony please contact us immediately.