This is my second attempt with this species.
References:
0 - https://en.wikipedia...wiki/Cerapachys
1 - http://www.antwiki.o...chys_sulcinodis
2 - http://www.antstore....chys-risii.html
3 - http://www.alexander...era/Cerapachys/
4 - https://www.youtube....h?v=qIIPEH79a4U
5 - https://www.youtube....h?v=yUswPOijLPg
Past experience:
My old colony lasted very little. I had one queen. The colony came inside a small cup with green leaves. I don't have any photos (don't know how I forgot to record this). I transferred them into the new setup, and no change with this species. They are so aggressive and no chance to wait, once I opened the cup, I had to drop them inside the outworld.
What happened was that the nest was too big for the size of the colony, and of course they choose the farthest place from the nest entrance to hide. Since they were small I overlooked the light factor, I didn't provide any shade or dark place.
They never came out to drink or hunt. They kept going just because I placed a cricket inside the nest which they killed after he reached their location.
The queen ended up dying and was eaten by the workers. It was a total failure on my part.
On going experience:
After that abrupt end to a really cool species, I decided to try again, and this time, I read more, whatever I could get my hands into.
And I ordered a two queen colony.
Same delivery method. Larger cup with green leaves.
This time I had a different setup. A smaller nest for a larger colony. And I covered the nest with cardboard (top and around) to provide a dark hiding area.
Because of the size of the colony and their aggression I didn't have any choice. I had to drop them inside the out world.
Mistake, I placed too much soil. First thing they did with the panic was to dig the substrate. After a couple of hours, i noticed one worker going into the nest, and inspecting it, coming out and hiring another worker to come to inspect. This followed for the next 4 hours, every time the trail of ants was bigger, it was very funny, they followed all in line.
When I woke up the next day, the colony had all moved over.
Queen are easy to differentiate (larger and bigger gaster...maybe you can see the end of one on the middle right?)
Behaviour:
This species drinks a lot of water, but be careful, they are not good climbers, and they will drown in the smallest water blade... make sure to provide water with cotton (it sucks because they love to destroy the cotton).
They are reported to be an army ant type species.
Although the queens are easy to differentiate, they are not easy to spot, because the colony will round up in a ball type, surrounding every thing in a black mass.
They are super aggressive, but really aggressive. They will attack, grab and linger my pincers, and they are not easy to remove.
They require dark hiding places, otherwise they will stress out. I can see the difference of behavior every time i remove the covers, they round up more and more.
The difficulty I am having now (although no queen is dead, which is a very good sign for me) is to report how they are doing.
Since they curl up in a ball, I can't see anything... no eggs, no larvae, no puppae... also I cannot assess how they are processing food.
Nest is becoming dirty very fast, because I have been overfeeding them (just noticed it recently... drawing parallels from Gnamptogenys Bicolor colony as well)
Dead workers appear seldom maybe one every 5 days or more. Not worried.
I am planning to change their nest into a flat one as well. I am going to try to use light to make them move.
I will keep posting updates here.
