black ant question....

[Grant vg]

After mixing a whole lot of substrate as well as introducing a few nice logs from outside (which were soaked in hot soapy water as well as baked in the oven) I have found a couple black ants in the enclosure (chances are they're may be a few more).

Can these effect Timor monitors in anyway?
I understand that high temps and high humidity are perfect conditions for ant reproduction, but considering theres no "food", would they just die off?

I have no clue what i should do at this time.

Any advice is appreciated.

Grant

[Jeff_Favelle]

Ha ha, ask Frank Retes about how "harmless" ants are to monitors and he'll talk your ear off.

I doubt the worker ants you have brought in with your substrate would contain a queen and be able to reproduce and produce lots of ants that would be harmful.

But I wouldn't leave ants in the cage, just to be safe.

[MikeT]

I wouldn't worry too much about the ants. To be dangerous there has to be a huge quantity of them, which you don't have. I use outside bark and logs for all my enclosures for both dwarf and large monitors. In the beginning I always get a few ants, (or quite a few) but they always die off and dissappear with no ill effects. The ants that Jeff is referring to that can be a problem is if you have an outside cage in which your monitors can be completely overun by nearby ant colonies. This can be deadly.
Mike

[Grant vg]

thanks guys!
i appreciated the info :) You have put me at ease . ...(sigh)

Gvg

[Tim and Julie B]

I grabbed some bark from the porch yesterday and put it in the kitchen for later use can back and there was the largest black ant I have ever seen. So I guess it happens a lot. I don't think my scorpions would have minded.:D