109 replies to this topic

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Until my colony is ready the wild caught test workers are keeping me entertained.

I don't know what they do with the protein but they take plenty of it.
Might have overseen a queen in there but I don't think so they have many queens but I'm positive I didn't get a single one.

Whatever their purpose is they show me that they thrive in there and use everything like intended.
Small adjustments were made and I know for a fact that the setup suits my future empire.

That and my entertainment are the reasons why I have them testing the setup.
They gonna die sooner or later but until then they can live a happy spoiled life in there.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Quick update

Seems like they don't hibernate yet. We have pretty high temperatures for this time of the year so they are still going.

We have 3 workers, 1 pupae about to be done, 6 larvae and 6 eggs.

Their tube started molding quite a bit so I switched that out. Took em about 3 minutes to make the full move.

I like their progress and so far, they have been very nice to me.
Took every food I gave, always moved quickly and they are used to me watching them and messing with their stuff all the time.

They are very aggressive and active ants so I'm glad we get along cause I'll have them for many years to come. ^^

[AntaholicAnonymous]

I plan on making another very large enclosure cause I wanna have 2 colonies.
That'll be it but one does not simply have olny a single ant colony is what I'm saying. lol

I think some type of camponotus would fit well but I'm not sure maybe one of you has suggestions for a good species.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Got 4 workers and just as I thought they'd be chill they started messing around.

Before the 4th hatched they would be relaxed and now they are constantly running and picking at stuff.
As I said before restless ants who consume heaps of sugar because of that.

Seems like they wait til they have a squad together to reveal their attitude so here we go I guess. lol

But the brood is developing at a good pace and they do their thing so I still love them.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

They are about to hybernate.
The queen ate the eggs she layed so I got 4 workers and 7 larvae now.

They are gonna be hibernating in fairly warm conditions so we will see how that goes.

If nothing happens the next post should be on how they and me hopefully survived the winter.

Also I'll make a new journal about messor barbarus that I'll get as soon as the next season pops off.

I hope all of your colonies survive the winter too see ya then.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Well it's been some time since last update and quite a bit has happened.

They were in a pretty rough shape and I decided to pull them out of hibernation after a couple weeks and that payed off just as I was hoping.

Their tube started to mold very bad so I decided to put them into a former Salat bowl wich is now their natural setup since a couple months.

They were absolutely loving the new space and they started to dig right away.
I kept feeding them as much as they'd take and I kept the room they're in at 26°C wich means I've been sweating in my kitchen lately.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Now I can't know exactly how many they are but you can expect them to never send out more than half on average for gathering and they just came out 16 deep for a little piece of mango so I guesstimate them to be round 28 to 35 ants right now.

They will outgrow their setup pretty soon I hope and their massive setup is up and running for the better part of a year right now.

As they grow they hunt more and more like big red demons especially when they slaughter fruit flies.

I throw in about 40 at a time and they just drag them down their 8 nest entrances.

There has been no time when you wouldn't see at least a couple ants digging they just never stop doing that.
Can't wait to let them claim their future lands

[AntaholicAnonymous]

I have noticed something a little strange over the last 2 days.

I saw one worker who must be new to the above ground gang and she's a way brighter red than the other ones and about 1,5mm larger.
The other ones are vicious hunters but shy towards any vibrations this one is absolutely crazy tho.
She's charging with open mandibles like a shark.
Not even killing the fruit flies just ramming and grabbing them.

I poked her with a stick and she grabbed on tight with the mandibles and wrapped her legs around. Whatever that ant is I hope I'll get more of those in the future.

Either the fruit fly fed batches are mutants or this is just a newly assigned job as a soldier/defender. Even the head and gaster are brighter I wonder if that's diet related.

[RushmoreAnts]

I have noticed something a little strange over the last 2 days.

I saw one worker who must be new to the above ground gang and she's a way brighter red than the other ones and about 1,5mm larger.
The other ones are vicious hunters but shy towards any vibrations this one is absolutely crazy tho.
She's charging with open mandibles like a shark.
Not even killing the fruit flies just ramming and grabbing them.

I poked her with a stick and she grabbed on tight with the mandibles and wrapped her legs around. Whatever that ant is I hope I'll get more of those in the future.

Either the fruit fly fed batches are mutants or this is just a newly assigned job as a soldier/defender. Even the head and gaster are brighter I wonder if that's diet related.

This is normal for most species. Nanitics and the few generations afterwards tend to be smaller and shyer, and take up less energy to grow, as it's hard for small colonies to scrape up enough resources to grow normal workers. When a colony is fed more protein, then the workers grow larger, as there's more food around to support larger growth. So most workers from now on should be like the larger one.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

I knew that but I thought I already had the big ones I was a little surprised at the level up. lol

This one is constantly testing the borders so if I got like 10 of these I can finally put them into their huge tank.

[Barristan]

Could you change the title, since you wrote "Manica rubra" and not "Manica rubida" there.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Could you change the title, since you wrote "Manica rubra" and not "Manica rubida" there.

I'd like to but I couldn't figure out how to do that

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Here's a little update about that one ant I was talking about.

After 2 days of rampage I just saw it still alive but legs stretched out to the side and back.

The other ants were inspecting it but neither them nor I know what's going on.
This ant might have birth defects.
It's color, behavior, size and now weird process of dying is just odd.

Maybe someone knows what that is I put it in a test tube so I can observe what's happening.
I wanna isolate it in case it's some sort of parasite or disease.

[RushmoreAnts]

 

Could you change the title, since you wrote "Manica rubra" and not "Manica rubida" there.

I'd like to but I couldn't figure out how to do that

 

You edit the first post, and click 'full editor'. Then you can edit the title. 

[AntaholicAnonymous]

They seem to have found their passion.

They kill fruit flies all day long but don't take anything else since they tasted the first fruit fly.

I just refill fruit flies when their numbers are low and they are basically on a 24/7 killing spree. lol
That's cool with me but they are not exploding in numbers it's more of a steady growth and I really wanna move them into a bigger setup.

I know a colony I could snatch some brood of and when their numbers are up. I wanna try to introduce another queen or two since they can be polygynous at a certain size. I'm sure it'll end in a disaster but I'll have to find out myself.

[RushmoreAnts]

They seem to have found their passion.

They kill fruit flies all day long but don't take anything else since they tasted the first fruit fly.

I just refill fruit flies when their numbers are low and they are basically on a 24/7 killing spree. lol
That's cool with me but they are not exploding in numbers it's more of a steady growth and I really wanna move them into a bigger setup.

I know a colony I could snatch some brood of and when their numbers are up. I wanna try to introduce another queen or two since they can be polygynous at a certain size. I'm sure it'll end in a disaster but I'll have to find out myself.

Make sure the number of queens is an odd number. Not sure if this would make a difference, but I would assume that if queens fight, they would 'cancel each other out', leaving only one, and not none.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

I wanna add 2 so I have 3.
I'll only add them when the colony is bigger so they shouldn't fight at all hopefully.

I like that logic tho at least one doesn't get hurt. I don't know if that'll be an issue and I wouldn't know anyways cause it happens in the depth of the soil. lol

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Manica have a system called secondary polygyny that means that older colonies take in queens.

So 2 queens in test tubes would kill each other but they do adopt them once they are established. So I won't be adding a queen for at least the next couple of months.
I'll stick to brood boosting if I want bigger numbers faster.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

I have some good news.
The ants are growing in numbers. I'd guess them to be around 70 to 90 ants and they are outgrowing their salad bowl slowly but surely.

Their big setup is up for a year now and it's still a perfect eco system but I had some mold issues in the drainage gravel layer at the bottom.
I dug it up and I saw white little spots all over the gravel in a 15cm radius.

I poured some vinegar over it and closed it up for 2 days to spread out then dug it up and let it dry out for 2 weeks and it's fully gone now.

They will move in within the next weeks. I'll just do a little face lift on their setup first

[AntaholicAnonymous]

It's time for one or a couple update posts actually cause a lot is happening right now.

I decided to move the colony into their large tank and just made a paper bridge between their salad bowl and the terrarium.
Of course they waited until I was sleeping to make the whole move in privacy so I can only imagine how cool that must have been...

As I expected they moved into the 60 kilos of sand I have in there but to my surprise they sorta moved into the entire tank.
What I mean with that is that their tunnels after only 3 days were in every corner of the setup and they especially like the gravel drainage layer where all the other dangerous creatures reside such as centipedes unfortunately.

For comparison my lasius niger had 3 nest entrances when they were in the thousands. I counted 45 entrances so far and they do not stop digging. Ever.