472 replies to this topic

[antmaniac]

I enjoy reading this journal very much, it reminds me of that leaf cutter ant documentary I watched on Youtube, but with lots more details. I also find it quite educational, especially the scientific input from drtrmiller.

[dspdrew]

Update 3-1-2015
 
I moved all the rest of the colonies into new updated versions of their formicariums. Moving them was pretty easy. I just used a razor blade to detach the fungus from the floor of the container, and with the razor blade in one hand, and a tweezers in the other, lifted the fungus out and into the new container.

 

Unfortunately the second to last worker in the test colony died, so I gave them two pupae from another colony. I also gave them a little more fungus. I just saw the queen with a big piece of a sunflower petal in her mandibles, so they're already taking good care of her new donated fungus garden.

[dspdrew]

Update 5-28-2015
 
All five colonies are doing great. Two of them have around 100 workers, and 100 or so brood. The third largest has about 40 workers with 50 or so brood, and the other two have about 20 workers and 15 brood.
 
The largest two are going to need larger formicariums very soon at the rate they're growing. One of them has workers crawling all over the sides and the top of the foraging container all the time now, so I think they're already in need of something larger.
 
Here's some of the latest pictures of my two largest colonies and a little video I made.
 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

[Lamarr]

Do you have a special way of hydrating the nest without opening the lid?

Edited by Lamarr, May 29 2015 - 8:49 PM.

[dspdrew]

The floor soaks up water from the water tank, and is saturated at all times.
 

 

[PTAntFan]

Absolutely phenomenal, Drew.  Are these species successfully maintained in captivity commonly?

[Lamarr]

Very interesting design! Is the nest in second photo upside down for the better view? Also, is there a reason why you filled up your nest with more hydrostone in the nest with the colony than one in the picture?

[dspdrew]

Absolutely phenomenal, Drew.  Are these species successfully maintained in captivity commonly?

 
Not commonly, but there are quite a few captive colonies out there.
 
 

Very interesting design! Is the nest in second photo upside down for the better view? Also, is there a reason why you filled up your nest with more hydrostone in the nest with the colony than one in the picture?

 
Yes it was upside down so you could see the hydration port in the bottom. The nest they are in now has a ceramic tile in the bottom covered in Hydrostone. This is because having too much water flowing through Hydrostone dissolves it pretty quickly and results in holes. It's all explained in the thread I have created for this formicarium (http://www.formicult...dated-3-1-2015/).

[Vendayn]

65q24g4g5f

Edited by Vendayn, March 9 2018 - 7:04 PM.

[dspdrew]

Update 6-25-2015
 
Disaster!
 
Turns out my largest colony was up to about 300 workers, but now probably has no more than 70. A lot of the brood is now gone too. I'll explain what happened.
 
First of all, two of the colonies were starting to outgrow their current formicarium, obviously one of them being the colony with what was 300 or so workers. I decided to update the design of these formicariums entirely, instead of just creating a larger one very similar to the original.
 

 
This new design is completely configurable and expandable, and I think will work very well. You can read about it here (http://www.formicult...ated-6-25-2015/).
 
The disaster happened when I forcefully moved my largest colony into it. I saw this same thing happen before when forcefully moving my Acromyrmex colonies, but on a very small scale. Basically, I think what happened was the colony thought they were under attack, and just started fighting, not having any idea WHO they were fighting. They were fighting themselves, literally ripping each other to pieces.
 
When I first moved them in a few days ago, everything seemed fine. Shortly after, they started moving some of the brood into the out world, which I assumed was because of the humidity. I had the nest sitting right in front of an open window at night, and the containers were really starting to fog up. This made me decide to change the configuration a bit, and add another dry container between the out world and the fungus chambers, so they would have a place to go to escape the extreme humidity instead of just the out world.
 

 
 
Here the container at the end of the out world is not hydrated, while the one next to it, and the one next to that one are. Those three are also the only ones open. The last two are closed and not being used.
 

 
 
I added lots of new substrate.
 

 
 
A lot of the workers gathered on one of the out world walls and just kind of hung out there.
 

 

 
 
Then the fighting started.
 

 
 
It seemed to only be the older workers that were doing most of the fighting, while the younger callow workers and the queen stayed in the center of the fungus with most of the brood. I couldn't see the queen for three days, and was worried that she might have been ripped to pieces too. It turns out the entire time she was there, right in the middle of a big clump of workers. They were all completely covering her up.
 

 
 
They fought and fought, ripping off limbs, gasters and heads. Pretty soon the entire fungus container was littered with body parts.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
It was a pretty horrific scene. I would guess they lost about 3/4 of the colony by the time the war was over.
 
This is what a lot of the survivors looked like once the fighting was done.  This one is actually pretty lucky compared to some.
 

 
 
This one was not so lucky.
 

 
 
Three days later, almost all of the fighting stopped, and the remaining colony started cleaning up the mess, moving most of the carnage away from the fungus.
 

 

 

 
 
It's been four days now, and it looks like the workers have piled most all of it up in the corners. Hopefully they will eventually move it out of that container and into the out world where it won't grow unwanted fungus.
 

 

 
 
This will be the last time I try to forcefully move these things; It just doesn't work well. Maybe they are just too stupid or something, I don't know... This was my largest colony, but not anymore. I'm just glad the queen is okay, because she clearly produces a lot, and will probably have this colony back on its feet in no time.
 
As for the formicarium, I'm not worried about it. I don't see any reason to believe the formicarium itself had anything to do with this.

[LC3]

Hope your colony recovers. :c

[Miles]

Oh gosh. That's insane. Not the first time today I read about in-colony fighting. I'm sorry.

[drtrmiller]

I'd attach a vinyl tube to my vacuum and suck out all the dead ones.  Good roach food.

[dspdrew]

I actually have a micro shop-vac I made just for that, but I'm afraid to disturb them at all now.

[Miles]

I was gonna say, disturbing them sounds like a great plan - It'll definitely help the recovery process! 

[Tpro4]

"Let us have a moment of silence to remember those who have perished in the a. Versicolor civil war. This War came swiftly and did not last very long for, those loyal to the queen gave their all and ripped the rebels to pieces. Let us have high hopes for the loyal who have perished to make it into ant heaven." A. Versicolor Queen.
lol

[LC3]

Well said.

[cpman]

Wow. That's pretty bad.

[Chromerust]

Well I guess this explains why so many of mine were dying when I moved them to a new setup awhile back.

[Gregory2455]

I think the alarm pheromones this species releases causes them to turn on each other if released in great quantities. Just a hypothesis. In this case, moving the ants caused this large release of alarm pheromones.