Leaf Cutting Ant Forum

Possibly the most important decision when choosing your leaf cutting ants. I had a hard time picking but believe i have chose well. I have compromised some of the most important key factors to think about when choosing between the two.
Size - Although Atta are tiny, and you may think they take up less space, think again. Atta create much larger colonies that Acromyrmex and some monstrous soldiers. A fully grown atta colony may even take 5x the amount of space compare to an Acromyrmex colony!
Jaw power: Atta are much more powerful biters, and i know from being bitten by both Atta and Acromyrmex. An atta minor bites almost harder than an Acromyrmex major!
Workers Sizes: Atta definitely wins this one. With over 20 castes within the colony - and an impressive soldier troop - Atta are sure better than Acromyrmex to watch.
Cost: Atta cost more than Acromyrmex, meaning that you will get 'less value for money'.
Sensitivity: Acromyrmex will withstand a lot more than Atta. A recent example is my colony going without fungus for 3 days. A hard thing - no food. They took it relatively easily but im sure Atta couldnt cope.

All together if you have the time, space and money - Atta. But if your looking for an easy, cheap and 'beginner' leaf cutting ant species to start with then go with Acromyrmex Octospinosus. Hope this helps

Formica123 wrote:Possibly the most important decision when choosing your leaf cutting ants. I had a hard time picking but believe i have chose well. I have compromised some of the most important key factors to think about when choosing between the two.
Size - Although Atta are tiny, and you may think they take up less space, think again. Atta create much larger colonies that Acromyrmex and some monstrous soldiers. A fully grown atta colony may even take 5x the amount of space compare to an Acromyrmex colony!
Jaw power: Atta are much more powerful biters, and i know from being bitten by both Atta and Acromyrmex. An atta minor bites almost harder than an Acromyrmex major!
Workers Sizes: Atta definitely wins this one. With over 20 castes within the colony - and an impressive soldier troop - Atta are sure better than Acromyrmex to watch.
Cost: Atta cost more than Acromyrmex, meaning that you will get 'less value for money'.
Sensitivity: Acromyrmex will withstand a lot more than Atta. A recent example is my colony going without fungus for 3 days. A hard thing - no food. They took it relatively easily but im sure Atta couldnt cope.

All together if you have the time, space and money - Atta. But if your looking for an easy, cheap and 'beginner' leaf cutting ant species to start with then go with Acromyrmex Octospinosus. Hope this helps

Good post formica but I don't think its totally accurate buddy especially if a new potential keeper was reading and making a decision on which to get.

Size is really irrelevant as you are extremely unlikely to be able to provide Acromyrmex with sufficient space to reach maturity so I wouldn't base your decision on colony size.
An atta minor bites almost harder than an Acromyrmex major-this isn't true from being bit of from both, big Acromyrmex workers have stronger jaws.

"All together if you have the time, space and money - Atta. But if your looking for an easy, cheap and 'beginner' leaf cutting ant species to start with then go with Acromyrmex Octospinosus."

Its not as simplistic as that, space and time spent will be the same. They may be a little more forgiving but its not huge margins and the price difference in my opinion is minimal.

Atta have soldiers and Acromyrmex don't but the soldiers rarely leave the fungus gardens, if you use soil you will see them even less.
Atta I found had a bigger variation on forager size where Acromyrmex where more uniformly bigger ants and more impressive on display-in my eyes.
Acromyrmex seem more solidly built ants and personally I find them the nicer to look at ant.
Acromyrmex wont break the skin which is good if your keeping at home. (Atta soldiers will)
Atta have a nice big queen which is more impressive to look at.

Both fantastic as formica said and you wont be disappointed in what ever you choose .

Atta is easier to spell than Acromyrmex.
And.....
As a beginning species, I would never recommend Atta for starters.
Acromyrmex, in nature, are found in less forgiving conditions, drier, hotter, more variable. This means they will tolerate more mistakes which are bound to be made at the start. Also Acromyrmex will move house in the tropics if conditions don't suit. In captivity you can therefore offer them the choice between a very wet, very humid nest area or a drier one. Whereas Acromyrmex will happily move into which ever one they prefer, Atta will normally sit it out until they die.
One thing in Attas favour though. I don't think I have ever had a problem getting Atta to feed after being shipped, sometimes a colony of Acromyrmex can be very difficult to kick start.
Ultimately the thing that seals the deal for me, however, is the size Atta get to. They will outgrow any container. Marco, 5x the size of Acromyrmex is a huge understatement, they get absolutely enormous. And if you try to limit numbers by limiting space you have the ominous development of 100000 workers with nothin to do but plot their escape!!
Great topic for a post.

Are you best just to cull a large fungus garden to put the colony back for population control? All be it if you know where the queen is it would be easier.

What species will you keep in your set up when you get round to it?

Andrew, after 11 years of being in exactly the same tank set up, bar me adding the extra tank on your advice, has our Acro colony just adapted to the limited set up size? I find it totally amazing that we haven't been completely overrun by the colony really expanding. And by the way, the ants dismantled the two extra nests that they started to build in their feed tanks, they've all returned to the original nest tank now. These animals are incredible! I guess it's adaptation for survival in action.

Jackie, your colony is actually very large. In Trinidad, if we came across a colony with the numbers of ants in it like your it is a daunting task to locate the queen. If you had Atta in that size of setup you would be fighting a different battle. As it is I think you have actually provided a big enough space for the Acros to live without concerns about restricting them. Got the impression that your set up was a really good balanced example of a thoroughly well managed care strategy when I visited.

What setup do you have? And pics?

Our set up is very basic and has hardly changed over the time. I'm going to take photos and video tomorrow when I'm back at work, so will post ASAP.

hi was thinking about going for Acromyrmex (which I copied as cant spell it )and a tank setup.(like RichardP one) I was looking at maybe a 3ft or 4ft tank with tubs in it for nesting and fungus and water for temp and humidity then have an extra outside feed tank with tubing going to it.
Any suggestions and advice please hope I put this in the right place