Well, it seems obvious but some people don’t have hobbies I guess. I don’t keep ants, but I definitely see why someone would enjoy raising a colony of ants that are so different from what we normally have and why would be interesting. Keeping an ant colony healthy is a rewarding challenge and those ants have different behaviors and body types to regular ants. Look at that chonker of a queen, she is pretty beautiful on her own.
I would posit that potentially releasing invasive species or pets that won’t survive the new localle crosses past the hobbyist/enthusiast lines towards villainny or menace. Might as well call arson a hobby.
The best practice is to keep local ants. Almost all ant keepers suggest doing that. Also invasive ants that already have a foothold in the area is fine, like keeping fire ants for instance, though one should be more vigilant about keeping them in captivity and never risk letting them free. I would suppose new invasive should be only kept by expert keepers. I wouldn’t even say those experts should be zoos, just well trained. Part of that training might be that they would decide not to keep them at all. So there is that. Some ants can’t climb as well as others and are easier to set up confinements for. Some ants are nigh impossible to keep in or out…
Well, it seems obvious but some people don’t have hobbies I guess. I don’t keep ants, but I definitely see why someone would enjoy raising a colony of ants that are so different from what we normally have and why would be interesting. Keeping an ant colony healthy is a rewarding challenge and those ants have different behaviors and body types to regular ants. Look at that chonker of a queen, she is pretty beautiful on her own.
I would posit that potentially releasing invasive species or pets that won’t survive the new localle crosses past the hobbyist/enthusiast lines towards villainny or menace. Might as well call arson a hobby.
The best practice is to keep local ants. Almost all ant keepers suggest doing that. Also invasive ants that already have a foothold in the area is fine, like keeping fire ants for instance, though one should be more vigilant about keeping them in captivity and never risk letting them free. I would suppose new invasive should be only kept by expert keepers. I wouldn’t even say those experts should be zoos, just well trained. Part of that training might be that they would decide not to keep them at all. So there is that. Some ants can’t climb as well as others and are easier to set up confinements for. Some ants are nigh impossible to keep in or out…
That’s what I’m saying lol like hobbies are one thing, transporting potentially invasive species becomes another.