1787 replies to this topic

[Mettcollsuss]

What camera do you use? the photos are amazing.

Edited by Mettcollsuss, May 8 2018 - 4:24 PM.

[CoolColJ]

What camera do you use? the photos are amazing.

 

The photos at the start of the journal were Sony RX100 mk1, pics usually cropped to magnify, then with Raynox 250 slapped on, still a bit cropped but less so. A few with my old Panasonic GH-2, but I have sold that now.

And now I use a Panasonic G85 with an Olympus 60mm macro lens (by itself or with Raynox 250 added), or a Panasonic Lumix 45-175mm zoom lens with the Raynox 250 on the end.

These can shoot a scene of 17mm width or down to 12mm. If I stack everything it can go down to 7mm, but focusing gets really hard as even 1mm either way and your out of focus

Flash used, with highest shutter speed possible, and hand held usually.

Edited by CoolColJ, May 8 2018 - 4:35 PM.

[CoolColJ]

2x Phediole sp. red head/black body 9mm - 10th May 2018
 
6th nanitic has eclosed

And the nanitics are starting to get quite busy with the brood, which has expanded quite a bit.

I noticed some of the larvae are getting split off into other places in the test tube

And a clump of eggs it seems at the back.

 

You can see the piece of almond I gave them, at the bottom left of the queen.

click for larger

 

Pheidole sp, all black  7mm

 

The queen has broken the almond up into smaller chunks and scattered them throughout the test tube at evenly spaced intervals, quite strange

And a few more nanitics may arrive in a few days time, they sure could use them

 

I.bicknelli

I gave my bicknelli a small piece of almond yesterday, and usually I remove the foil of raw honey after they have had their fill, but I decided to leave it overnight.
Well I think some of the honey leaked down to the almond, and the ants decided to move all the rubbish and dead nanitic bodyparts from the left cotton side of the test tube onto the almond and honey foil...

I have noticed some of my ants like to dump rubbish on something sticky.

Well it does give me a chance to remove it.

 

Edited by CoolColJ, May 9 2018 - 9:18 PM.

[CoolColJ]

Well my Red headed Iridomyrmex queen and brood is getting moved on.

I'm exchanging her, with another local ant keeper, for a large unknown Melophorus species

 

About the same size is my current eggless Melophorus queen 11mm or so, but with the opposite colour scheme.

She has four workers

 

 

Well I got these ants today.

 

And the queen is a lot smaller than what I thought. Seems like no one knows how to measure ants these days....

When he said 11mm I expected her to be as large as my 11mm Melophorus queen.

Which completely dwarfs my other 6-7mm queen, as seen in the pic below.

 

 

Well this queen is closer to 8mm, and half the thickness of my large Melophorus queen

 

The queen and workers look fine, but the test tube is completely dry?!

There is a lot of black gunk on the cotton as can be seen above, but also some wings. could be a fly.

 

I connected the test tube via piping to that Chinese acrylic founding nest I received a few weeks ago.

So there is at least some moisture in the space.

 

Can't tell if they will move in though, but I left some foil on honey in the feeding area of the nest.

So far the workers have not ventured much past the first vinyl tubing segment.

But from experience it usually takes ants a day or two to settle down after getting sent in the mail.

Just worried about the lack of water in the test tube....

 

click for larger - you can see my two eggless red Pheidole queens and my Camponotus consobrinus queen at the back

[CoolColJ]

Ok blowing breath on them triggered them, and there is actually 6 workers!

 

Queen is on the move and getting restless

Edited by CoolColJ, May 10 2018 - 3:37 AM.

[CoolColJ]

Finally got them to move in... but I someone how lost a worker, not sure what happened to the 6th worker

 

They are definitely a Melophorus species, but one I've never seen before, nor know of anyone who has documented them

Queen is closer to 7mm

 

click to enlarge

 

Queen has quite a rough texture

 

Workers have spiny bumps on them

Edited by CoolColJ, May 10 2018 - 6:10 PM.

[Mettcollsuss]

 

What camera do you use? the photos are amazing.

 

The photos at the start of the journal were Sony RX100 mk1, pics usually cropped to magnify, then with Raynox 250 slapped on, still a bit cropped but less so. A few with my old Panasonic GH-2, but I have sold that now.

And now I use a Panasonic G85 with an Olympus 60mm macro lens (by itself or with Raynox 250 added), or a Panasonic Lumix 45-175mm zoom lens with the Raynox 250 on the end.

These can shoot a scene of 17mm width or down to 12mm. If I stack everything it can go down to 7mm, but focusing gets really hard as even 1mm either way and your out of focus

Flash used, with highest shutter speed possible, and hand held usually.

 

How expensive is all that?

[MegaMyrmex]

Amazing ants, Melophorus has been a dream genus for me. They look pogonomyrmex mixed with myrmecocystus.

[CoolColJ]

 

 

What camera do you use? the photos are amazing.

 

The photos at the start of the journal were Sony RX100 mk1, pics usually cropped to magnify, then with Raynox 250 slapped on, still a bit cropped but less so. A few with my old Panasonic GH-2, but I have sold that now.

And now I use a Panasonic G85 with an Olympus 60mm macro lens (by itself or with Raynox 250 added), or a Panasonic Lumix 45-175mm zoom lens with the Raynox 250 on the end.

These can shoot a scene of 17mm width or down to 12mm. If I stack everything it can go down to 7mm, but focusing gets really hard as even 1mm either way and your out of focus

Flash used, with highest shutter speed possible, and hand held usually.

 

How expensive is all that?

 

 

For the G85 setup is pretty expensive, and I bought everything second hand from Ebay

I bought the G85 with 12-60mm kit lens, 2 batteries and a battery grip (which I haven't used yet) for $1200AUD, the Olympus macro lens for $350AUD. Raynox 250 is around $80-100AUD brand new. Don't really need the Panasonic 45-175mm zoom lens, it's just a different way of working, the depth of field is not as wide as the macro lens when used with the Raynox, but it does allow you to zoom in and out on videos, and this lens does not move when doing so, so the focus when used with the Raynox does not change.

I recently got a second hand Panasonic Leica 45mm macro lens which I most likely replace the Olympus 60mm. It is more expensive and the working distance is shorter, so I need to use extension tubes (bought from Ebay)

 with it to get a nice balance of magnification and working distance.

 

If you buy a bare G85 body and the Olympus 60mm macro lens second hand, you could probably get them to total under $1000AUD. Then add an external flash with TTL, there are some cheap Chinese brands like Meike mk320, but I went with a second hand Olympus FL600R which has a inbuilt LED light.

Then the rabbit hole starts, and it's nice having some twin flash hot shoe or tripod mount brackets (cheap on Ebay from China) for mounting an LED light to help focus and moving the flash off axis ( which I haven't done yet) and a remote flash cable if you do so.

 

That's one thing, then there is quite a large learning curve in shooting macro at high magnification. It's not unlike shooting a sniper rifle accurately

Then diffusing the flash in all kinda of creative ways, so the flash does not create a shadow from the lens at such close range, and that it won't blow out the eyes of glossy ants etc.

Right now I mostly rubber band a paper foam (the stuff they use to pack items I get from Ebay) to the front of the lens that is bent upwards, and then a second diffuser in front of the flash if needed.

 

This was my old setup for the Olympus 60mm, since the cloth diffuser I got from Ebay did not fit on the lens (it's too small) and so I wedged it between Ebay camera strap thing on the tripod mount and the lens, and used a foil lined toilet roll to create a snoot to direct the flashlight.

 

 

Since then I pulled the diffuser over the camera strap base and mount it vertically in front of the flash, and then a paper foam concave diffuser rubber banded at the front of the lens.

kinda like this for the paper foam diffuser setup.

 

You will find most of these macro flash setup use homemade DIY solutions. Paper foam, paper plates, meat packing styro foam etc, foam cups, even white paper, these all work

Translucent milk containers cut up, hell I've even seen Pringle can over the flash to direct the light to the front of the lens, and using the lid

 

Keep in mind, if you just get the lens, any old micro 4/3 camera body that allows for lens changing will work, even older models give much the same result.

The reason why I got the Panasonic G80/85, because it has in body 5 axis image stabilization, which is helpful for using it with lens that do not offer any and for video. Plus it does shoot 4K video.

The Olympus EM1 series also does, as does the small and cheaper Panasonic GX80/85

 

After that it's highest shutter speed to remove motion blur, small aperture to increase depth of field, between f8-22, but higher values decrease sharpness so it's a balancing game.

And the higher your magnification, the higher your effective/actual aperture value is.

Lower focal length lens also have greater depth of field. So using a long zoom lens with the Raynox will magnify, but your focus range is extremely small vs the 60mm macro lens, which in turn is shallower still than the Pana Leica 45mm.

But shorter focal lenses means you have less working range, so you have to get closer to the subject to get the same magnifications.

Zoom lens + Raynox allows you to be further away, so I prefer it for video and I can change the magnification by zooming without having to move the camera.

[CoolColJ]

Amazing ants, Melophorus has been a dream genus for me. They look pogonomyrmex mixed with myrmecocystus.

 

I like them because they are fast and zippy, cute chubby proportions, and polymorphic, although I haven't gotten to the stage of seeing majors yet, but one of my colony larvae looks to be a major.

 

On the bad side these ants are really difficult to get to the worker stage, and then get them to sustain egg laying.

After that with extremely slow egg to ant times. Probably even slower than Camponotus, despite being smaller.

They obviously get going and can have large colonies in the wild, so there must be something they don't like about the conditions of captivity

[CoolColJ]

2x Phediole sp. red head/black body 9mm - 12th May 2018
 
It's a shame but it appears something is up with one of the queens in this colony.
They are up to 6 nanitics now, but over the last couple of days, one queen has been hanging out near the entrance side cotton... and she doesn't budge from there.
The last time this happened to my other dual queen setup, I moved the queen to another test tube and she died shortly.
So either she has been outcast from the colony, or she is sick and will shortly die
I had high hopes for this colony, this was my favourite....

click for larger


Yet the workers do not attack her



I.bicknelli

Another worker eclosed yesterday, so up to 10. Back to highest total so far, and most of the nanitics have been replaced by second gen workers.
Which are are a bit larger by 1mm or so.


Melophorus sp - Black and orange, 7-8mm queen.

 

I put their acrylic founding nest ontop of my Lnyx Hilo PC sound convertor, which gets quite warm most of the time.

Hopefully it will help them out, and make them settle faster, as it's nearing winter now.

Make the queen want to lay eggs hopefully

It does make the water tube and hydration chamber of the nest build up condensation though

 

So far they have been hanging out in the middle chamber away from the water side.

And they have moved the baby cricket I gave them into the chamber and some workers have had a few chews

 

Been mulling over whether to open the nest up, with the vinyl tubing still in place, and place it into an outworld with substrate.

I saw one of the workers frequently pulling at the entrance cotton.

So it made me think it wants to go outside and get some substrate

 

-

 

I also tried putting my red transparent plastic test tube holder onto the sound convertor as a test, since it holds most of my queens and young colonies.

And after 15mins I noticed the ants moving the brood around due to the warmth.

But it also caused the water side cotton on some of the test tubes that had the cotton pushed flush with water level to start to leak a bit... so I removed it.

 

 

That's why I no longer push my cotton all the way down, I leave about 5mm from top of cotton to water level. It eventually soaks through, but no leaks

Edited by CoolColJ, May 12 2018 - 12:40 AM.

[CoolColJ]

My large Melophorus queen -

Well the last time I checked up on her was a week ago, and this morning, I looked and she is dead..... this one hurts since she is pretty unique and rare, especially at this size []

I think she may have died from dehydration as the water side cotton felt pretty dry, and did not wet a cotton bud placed against it. She had her jaws around some cotton, but she died in her little cotton chamber and not struggle out to the entrance so not sure either way  - well I do have videos and pics to remember her by

And she measured 12-13mm, a bit larger than when trying to do so in the test tube

click for larger

[sirjordanncurtis]

Do you think the chamber setup could have influenced her death?

[Canadian anter]

When Tetramorium banish queens, the same thing happens as in your Pheidole.

[CoolColJ]

Do you think the chamber setup could have influenced her death?

 

No my other two red Pheidoles in the chamber setup are doing fine, I double checked their cotton to make sure they are wetting.

I think the water did not soak through on this queen's cotton, so she died of dehydration

Because touching the water side cotton did not appear to be wet.

[CoolColJ]

Colony update - 13th May 2018
 

Melophorus sp.- red black 6-7mm queen
 
Still no egg... Looks like the smaller of the two larvae is starting to spin a cocoon.
Egg became the current larvae exactly one month ago.
Except the large one, which is looking closer to being a major.

click for bigger


look how big it is compared to the queen


size comparison of the two minor workers. I think the smaller one is a nanitic, but the colours are also different, so it might be just a different caste.



Melophorus sp.- black orange 7-8mm queen

I fed them a baby cricket and they did munch on it, so they are settling in. Hoping for eggs soon.
I have their nest sitting ontop a Lynx Hilo audio converter that gets quite warm, which should help, but does cause the water chamber to build up condensation.
So far the queen likes the middle dryer area of the nest, while 2 of the workers hang out in the vinyl tubing...




Opisthopsis Rufithorax (strobe ant) 10mm queen

That pupa that didn't spin a cocoon is looking quite orange and with black eyes, so they close to eclosing.
This week i removed the cotton that partially blocks the entrance and they plucked a ton of sand from the Atom C walls and blocked it up...
This does keep the water tower from evaporating too quickly. The last time I added water was 2 weeks ago, and only 1 unit on the synringe overflowed it!

You can see a guard peeking out

 
 
Camponotus humilior
 
Hmm one egg went missing, and so did one worker...I guess a nanitic expired.
But there is no trace of the body, so they must have eaten it completely since yesterday...
Man they getting back to ground zero, 2 eggs, 3 workers.

 
Iridomyrmex bicknelli
 
10 workers, lots of brood, things are easy.




2x Phediole sp. red head/black body 9mm
 
6 nanitics, but soon to be only one queen....I may separate the outcast one that hangs out near the entrance.
The workers still interact with her though.
 
 
Pheidole sp, all black  7mm
 
Still at 1 nanitic, thought another would eclose last week, but hopefully this week.

Edited by CoolColJ, May 12 2018 - 9:47 PM.

[CoolColJ]

13th May 2018 - Queen update


Pheidole sp. red 7mm

So 6 weeks after capture and one test tube change where I moved her into a black Pheidole queen's test tube that had died and left some eggs - which she ate, she finally lays her own!
When a solo queen you capture yourself lays eggs, it's a special feeling indeed.
If you recall I found her on the 30th March, on the windscreen of my car as I was about to start it up, she had just mated, with wings and male nearby, and tried to crawl into the windscreen trim crack

Sometimes over the last week she dropped down 7-8 eggs.
I noticed these red Pheidole queens like to pull and chew the cotton to lay down against the test tube surface as substrate.

click for larger


 
Iridomyrmex sp. 7-8mm
 
Into week 6, more medium size larvae.
I fed her a baby cricket this week and she has been munching on it, while still sipping the foil of honey I gave her since the start.
Now she can feed her brood properly

click to enlarge 


her gaster is still messed up...


 
2x Phediole sp. red head/black body 8mm
 
Larger larvae now, well 1-2mm nanitic Phedoile workers remeber
 

 
 
3x Phediole sp. red head/black body 8-9mm
 
No larvae yet, just a lot of eggs.
I hope these 3 queens stay together and not fight or get banished...


  
 
Camponotus consobrinus 16-17mm
 
No eggs

Pheidole sp, light red head, dark red body, 6-7mm
 
Queen 1 - no eggs
Queen 2 - no eggs

Edited by CoolColJ, May 12 2018 - 9:29 PM.

[CoolColJ]

When Tetramorium banish queens, the same thing happens as in your Pheidole.

Should I put her in a new test tube?

I briefly put her in a new one, but I could tell she wasn't comfortable.
As soon as I opened it up and placed it against the old test tube she returned.
Then she slowly advanced up the tube, but when she got halfway up, she quickly turned around as if alarmed and went back near the entrance

If she remains at her current position she will have no access to water.
There is one nanitic that seems to stick with her.

Edited by CoolColJ, May 13 2018 - 4:40 AM.

[sirjordanncurtis]

 

When Tetramorium banish queens, the same thing happens as in your Pheidole.

Should I put her in a new test tube?

I briefly put her in a new one, but I could tell she wasn't comfortable.
As soon as I opened it up and placed it against the old test tube she returned.
Then she slowly advanced up the tube, but when she got halfway up, she quickly turned around as if alarmed and went back near the entrance

If she remains at her current position she will have no access to water.
There is one nanitic that seems to stick with her.

 

 

Maybe try moving the nanitic and outcast queen (perhaps with some brood) together into a new setup? 

[CoolColJ]

 

 

When Tetramorium banish queens, the same thing happens as in your Pheidole.

Should I put her in a new test tube?

I briefly put her in a new one, but I could tell she wasn't comfortable.
As soon as I opened it up and placed it against the old test tube she returned.
Then she slowly advanced up the tube, but when she got halfway up, she quickly turned around as if alarmed and went back near the entrance

If she remains at her current position she will have no access to water.
There is one nanitic that seems to stick with her.

 

 

Maybe try moving the nanitic and outcast queen (perhaps with some brood) together into a new setup? 

 

 

Moving her with some brood might be tough as it's right at the back and can't be reached with my delicate forceps, and workers will go crazy if I even tried.

Easier to move her with just one worker. I'm sure she can lay more eggs of her own, eventually, once she settles down