46 replies to this topic

[OhNoNotAgain]

I'm slated to do my first ever educational spiel on ants for some grade school kids next week.

I'm taking in most of my colonies just for the talks, but I will leave only this one there.

I just got the inhabitants today, plus a nice color ant poster on which I already wrote "(with GASTER)" next to "ABDOMEN." lol

 

I must say Pogonomyrmex occidentalis workers are big, charismatic, and beautiful - I think they are larger than my Camponotus (and yes, worse climbers, thank goodness).

 

As much as this is sort of ironic to be posting this in a serious formiculture forum (and yes with THA mini hearths in the background), I do see how this would be fun and exciting for kids, without the rather weighty responsibility of keeping a big queen healthy. I got my start with toy ant farms and glass jars probably more than 40 years ago.

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Edited by OhNoNotAgain, January 24 2020 - 10:07 PM.

[ponerinecat]

Just an FYI, gaster is not an abdomen. A gaster is the bottom part, an abdomen is the gaster combined with the petiole.

[justanotheramy]

I have a little "orphan" colony of black house ants because my kid's paternal grandfather gave her one of those gel-filled ant farm things, and the house across the road was being demolished so I figured the poor gals were doomed anyway…

The theory is that the ants will both nest in and eat the gel?
No-one told the ants.
So they'd try to burrow between the gel and the perspex, and suffocate themselves.

I ended up shaking the survivors out into a marginally more hospitable test tube in a container set up, where they huddled miserably like they apocalypse survivors they are for… 6 months?
Which is no life for an ant.

So I… umm… bought them a better outworld and nest setup, and started bringing them wild brood.

They are so much happier since the first Avalanche Of Babies — a busy purposeful ant is a happy ant?

Although as summer has gotten hotter, the wild nests have moved their brood further underground, and the orphan colony has had fewer brood to tend, one of my ants has started picking fights with her sisters. That behaviour seems to be settling down? I'm interested to see what, if anything, it was about.

Yes, I am probably a monster.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Just an FYI, gaster is not an abdomen. A gaster is the bottom part, an abdomen is the gaster combined with the petiole.

 

 

Okay, yeah, actually gaster + petiole + propodeum right?

Fixed the poster to "with GASTER" lol.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, January 24 2020 - 10:08 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

I actually would never have ordered Pogonomyrmex workers if I hadn't seen someone else's doing well - the ants were tunneling nicely in the substrate. Having natural dirt or sand seems to give them something productive to do, even without brood (which is what I recall from having captured wild workers when I was a kid). I would've been happier if I could've gotten some of my own Pogonomyrmex (californicus, not occidentalis) to move in - then I could have hooked it up to my Dirt Box and just occasionally unhooked it to take to the school, but they seemed uninterested and I don't think I have that many Pogonomyrmex yet.

 

Mostly I just remember how cool it was to see ants working when I was a kid, and want kids to be able to experience that. Esp. since I assume many don't have a backyard, much less a big backyard, and those that do may have nothing but Argentines.

 

EDIT: So far I have some evidence that seeing ants digging is fascinating to kids in ways that ants running around in a concrete box is not, even with queen and brood. Hopefully they'll get to see both.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, January 24 2020 - 10:02 PM.

[justanotheramy]

Yeah, I do kind of wish my aphaenogaster longiceps hadn't waited until they were out of the classroom to go full chaos ant — the kids would've loved it.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Yeah, I do kind of wish my aphaenogaster longiceps hadn't waited until they were out of the classroom to go full chaos ant — the kids would've loved it.

 

So what did they do?

[justanotheramy]

They figured out that stuffing sand into their water dispenser would syphon it out into the outworld sand and make it suitable for tunnelling…
…and they haven't looked back.
https://www.formicul...rmicarium-tips/
 

Before and after:

Edited by justanotheramy, January 25 2020 - 4:03 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Yup. Ants are really good at doing the opposite of what we want or expect. That’s almost an example of the hive mind using a tool. Pretty fascinating.

[justanotheramy]

Before they completely buried the rock the ants used to leave little… offerings up there sometimes, which the kids enjoyed.
The head of a fly. One cricket antenna. Two tiny pebbles they found in the red sand, one black and one white, positioned next to each other.
I don't know if this was a behaviour of the ants in general, or of a specific ant.

The kids also liked seeing how the ants would react to different human foods: eat it or burry it? (A piece of grated cheese was deemed so disgusting by the ants it was dragged straight to the refuse pile, to much hilarity and mocking of the cheese-donor).

[justanotheramy]

A question, if it's not disgraceful derailing…
My orphan colony have been tenderly nurturing a couple of giant jellybeans that must've come in with the other brood I kidnapped, and they've started to pupate — are they drones?

[PacificNorthWestern]

A question, if it's not disgraceful derailing…
My orphan colony have been tenderly nurturing a couple of giant jellybeans that must've come in with the other brood I kidnapped, and they've started to pupate — are they drones?

IMG_5299.jpeg

looks like alate pupae and larvae to me

[justanotheramy]

So my tiny huddle of orphans has… 5 baby alates?
Goodness.
What usually happens when they finish pupation?

[TennesseeAnts]

They hatch and then you have alates.

Edited by Ant_Dude2908, January 26 2020 - 3:43 PM.

[justanotheramy]

Thank you, Captain Obvious
I mean does a weirdo colony like this (or any captive colony) have any use for them?

[TennesseeAnts]

No. Sometimes, though the queens will break their wings off and help around the nest and forage like a normal worker, as is the case with Aphaenogaster.

[justanotheramy]

I'm going to stop hijacking and make my own journal, with apologies!
https://www.formicul...colony-journal/

[Serafine]

You should really try to add a water source to these Milton farms or the ants will fie fairly quickly.

[OhNoNotAgain]

You should really try to add a water source to these Milton farms or the ants will fie fairly quickly.

 

I was going to come by every few days and add water and provide some sugary food (like maybe bits of apple?). Would that be sufficient? Or maybe some kind of tube attachment to a side port with cotton as a water reservoir maybe?

[OhNoNotAgain]

NOTE TO ANYONE TRANSPORTING MINI HEARTHS....

DO NOT ACCIDENTALLY TOUCH THE VIEWING WINDOW TO ANOTHER VIEWING WINDOW. 

 

Oh my goodness. I was showing the mini hearths to a teacher before school and accidentally rotated a mini hearth near another one. The magnets promptly stuck together, opening both mini-hearths. After some panicked window fixing I wound up with two squashed Tetramorium workers. Thankfully no squashed fraggles. Wow. Lesson learned. 

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, January 27 2020 - 9:57 AM.