I live in Florida and would like a beginner species that lives here naturally.
Answered by Nolan, Director of Live Collections & Partner · October 27, 2026 at 8:52 PM CDT
Plenty of them. If I had to pick three to start with, I'd go with these. All three are native to Florida and rated Beginner in our care guides:
Pheidole bicarinata, the Variable Big-headed Ant. Forgiving and fast-growing, and no diapause needed. Once the colony passes 50 to 100 workers, the big-headed majors start to appear.
Camponotus castaneus, the Chestnut Carpenter Ant. Easy-going, as long as the nest stays humid and they always have sugar available. They're most active from dusk to dawn. Ours come from the Southeast, so their winter rest is shorter than northern populations'.
Trachymyrmex septentrionalis, the Northern Fungus-farming Ant. They grow a fungus garden, which sounds hard, but they're some of the easiest ants to rear if you keep them humid. Florida populations don't diapause, and that's where ours come from.
Every species on our site carries a Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced or Expert tag, so you can pick out the easy ones quickly. Our Florida page lists every species we can ship to you. For exactly where a species occurs in the wild, antmaps.org and iNaturalist have the best current records.
Local species have one more advantage: they're already suited to your climate.