27 replies to this topic

[CheetoLord02]

While I've considered making a journal on this species for a while, I decided to bite the bullet and do so today.

I received 2 Lasius interjectus queens from a friend all the way back in October. I quickly got them introduced together to around 100 Lasius americanus workers and put them into hibernation. I managed to only grab a single bad picture of them before hibernation, so here you go.
 

 

 

Unfortunately, my hopes for having a polygynous Lasius parasite colony were crushed shortly out of hibernation, when I noticed one of the two queens had died. Thankfully the other was still fine, and I elected to move them into a Mini Hearth.

Fastforward to now, and the queen finally decided to lay eggs. I'm not sure why it took so long, around 3 weeks, but at least it's finally happened. Normally they hide in one of the side connections on the mini hearth, and you can even see the queen poking her head out from there in the 2nd image. This sucks because while I could see eggs for sure, I had no idea how many! Well for some reason tonight they pulled the pile out onto the water tower, and to my surprise there's at least a few dozen, and I'm almost positive the queen is still laying more each day, since this pile seems far larger than what I could (barely) see in the last few days.
 

 

 

The single pupa in there is L. americanus, not interjectus. When getting the hosts out of my large L. americanus colony, I also sucked up a single larva, which they hibernated with. I'll probably end up adding more host brood from my L. americanus colony at some point, because while 100 is enough hosts, more is always better with Lasius parasites.

Edited by CheetoLord02, May 8 2021 - 11:07 AM.

[ArmansAnts]

Sucks that one died.

[NickAnter]

Good luck with these! In my opinion, more attempts at parasitic species should be made. How can we succeed without trying, after all?

[Chickalo]

uwu lasius, i love me some lasius

sorry to hear some of the queens died

imma try latipes (or literally any lasius parasite i find [but i mostly really want latipes]) this year and see how it goes

[Bobby_Hill]

You have so many sp.!

[KitsAntVa]

he did say he had around 60-70 I'm definitely trying interjectus next year then.

[CheetoLord02]

he did say he had around 60-70 I'm definitely trying interjectus next year then.

That was a while ago. I've downsized my collection quite a bit for the winter, and currently only keep 30 different species. The smallest my collection has been in quite a while, actually.

[CheetoLord02]

Update 2/24

This colony's brood has been developing steadily, and now they've got well over 100 larvae, probably even close to 200 (most being kept in the side holes of the mini hearth). So far the development has been a lot faster than I expected, but still a snail's pace compared to most other species I've kept.
 

I absolutely love how the queen looks. I can't wait to see her swell up like a balloon eventually.
 

Edited by CheetoLord02, February 24 2021 - 7:21 PM.

[CheetoLord02]

This colony now has an absolute truckload of larvae, just unfortunately their monstrously slow egg to worker time is killing me. None of the larvae are even close to pupating yet.
 

[CheetoLord02]

Since the last update this colony got their first biological pupa, and in the week or so since then around a dozen more!

I did move them to a new mini hearth because of the presence of grain mites in their old one. I haven't seen any more in the new setup which is nice.


Hopefully we're only 2-3 weeks off from biological workers. I can't wait.
 

Here's a video I did a few days ago showcasing the colony:

[CheetoLord02]

Finally, after 76 grueling days, the colony eclosed their first biological worker.... and immediately killed it.
 

 

 

Now, this is pretty common in Lasius. For whatever reason the hosts never seem to get along with the first worker. I just hope that the next pupae, which should keep eclosing in the coming days, won't suffer the same fate as this one.

Here's a brood picture for the time being
 

[Lillyrose]

Finally, after 76 grueling days, the colony eclosed their first biological worker.... and immediately killed it.

That escalated rather unexpectedly. Awww

Nice pics too!

[Canadant]

Wouldn't want to be born into that! Mother nature sometimes is as cold as ice. I hope she died for the sake of her coming comrades.

[Antkeeper01]

Update?

[CheetoLord02]

Well, we have finally gotten living bios, 5 in total. However that rate is actually pretty terrible considering they had at least 25 pupae in their first generation. For some reason they kept being dead-on-arrival, and I honestly think that's what happened to the first one, and not that she was killed by the hosts.

In better news, the biological workers tend to be much better at caring for the brood than the hosts, so hopefully next season they'll take off much better.

Speaking of next season, they have decided it's time to hibernate. In May. Yeah, I don't really know either. But no point in trying to keep them awake, that'll only kill them. So they'll be going in for their 3 month nap any day now, and you'll hear back from this journal then.

The bios are so cute
 

[Antkeeper01]

Congrats all you need to become a parasite and slavemaker expert is to raise polyergus to 100 bios lol 

EDIT: Also why are the queens legs so wacky?

Edited by Antkeeper01, May 8 2021 - 11:23 AM.

[Lillyrose]

Will you take them out in August? What odd little ants lol... but then you can put them back in November or December and have them out again in March or April. That's kinda neat.

[NickAnter]

Well its been over 3 months now...

 

Update?

[Antkeeper01]

UPDATE?

[NicholasP]

Any news on them?