I recently constructed a new Davis sifter, as the one I made prior had some very flimsy and fine screen which broke after a few months. I've built this new one with some fairly strong chicken wire that should last a few years, if not longer. Anyways, I decided to test it out in the lot beside my house where I know there are a ton of Strumigenys of all different species (and that I know is set to be developed 
). I found a nice pit where a tree stump used to be and started working there. I came across some Strumigenys workers fairly quickly. I preserved three in 97% isopropyl alcohol for later identification and started to collect some live workers. I collected as many as I could find by sight and put the rest of the detritus into a 1 gallon freezer bag to run through a Berlese funnel. I used the Davis sifter some more but could not extract any more workers. I ran the sample through the Berlese and got about 7 more workers (around 15 were present at this point). The next day I went back out to collect the rest of the colony. It only took two more Davis samples for me to come across the remaining portion of the colony. Lots of brood (mostly eggs and a few young larvae) was present, though I must've collected most of the workers prior, as there were only 2 workers collected here. I ran the rest of the soil through the Berlese funnel for a few hours and managed to collect the queen. The colony contains around 25 workers, a single queen, and quite a few brood items. I plan to keep these ants in one of Adele Fielde's nests seen here. I've been trying to feed them some collembolans, but so far they have yet to accept any. I may try either some smaller collembolans, symphylans, or maybe some globular collembolans. In any case, I'll try and keep this journal updated and this colony alive.
Edited by Ferox_Formicae, May 17 2021 - 4:52 AM.
