17 replies to this topic

[ReignofRage]

ReignofRage's Manica bradleyi Journal

 

 

 

Update 15.ix.2021

 

Here is a link to a video of a queen eating.

 

 

Eggs eggs eggs, all they did for a while was lay eggs. This species seemed to get more than 30+ eggs, it appears most will be trophic though.

 

 

 

The forbidden jelly beans, lol. The larvae for this species always looks slimey in person.

 

 

 

These puape go from white to fully colored in only a day, if only I could time lapse it.

 

 

 

Lastly, a nanitic! She enclosed today about an hour before I got these pictures.

Edited by ReignofRage, February 4 2024 - 9:09 PM.

[Kaelwizard]

I don't think I've ever seen someone who has a Manica colony with workers (not saying there aren't more, but I just haven't seen any). Congrats!

Edited by Kaelwizard, September 15 2021 - 5:04 PM.

[ReignofRage]

I don't think I've ever seen someone have a Manica colony with workers (not saying there aren't more, but I just haven't seen any). Congrats!

Thank you! So far there hasn't been any hiccups, so it should just be plain sailing for most of this colony and my other colonies' lives.

[Moonant01]

so lucky I had a Manica queen once it was ID'd as M. hunteri but she seemed to be infertile, so she died. But cograts

[ReignofRage]

so lucky I had a Manica queen once it was ID'd as M. hunteri but she seemed to be infertile, so she died. But cograts

That sucks, hopefully you can find another!

[Moonant01]

 

so lucky I had a Manica queen once it was ID'd as M. hunteri but she seemed to be infertile, so she died. But cograts

That sucks, hopefully you can find another!

 

the only other places I've seen manica are Buena Vista, and Leadville i was a bit to early for flights mature colonies had alates in the nestbut i was in each of those towns for a day. I found the queen in Alamosa(I'm in CO)

[ReignofRage]

One of the colonies got a second worker!

[ReignofRage]

Update 24.ix.2021

 

 

The workers have darkened quite nicely. After this generation of brood encloses all besides a couple will be hibernated, I want to experiment with whether or not they really need to hibernate or if there will be maleffects.I also don't really know what I want to move these colonies into, I have one in a tub and tubes setup to see how they will handle that.

[ReignofRage]

One colony is now up to seven workers, which is all I think I'm going to get out of the colony before hibernation.

[ReignofRage]

Update 19.i.2022

 

Definitely a weird time to update this journal since they should be in hibernation, but there is a good reason. So, as it's noticeable by the above updates, I had a few colonies. One of which I gave to Zeiss and the other two I decided to do an experiment with. The experiment was testing the validity of the rumors that Manica are dosile towards each other and to also see if I could combine colonies. What I had found is that they are definitely not docile towards each other and workers will clamp onto each other and will only give up if there is room to run away. Queens on the other hand are not so smart with the whole running away if there is room part and as this suggests the queens got into a scuffle and they both succumbed to eachother's stings. The workers did eventually get used to each other with little casualties after the scent of their lost queens faded. I was then left with around 13 workers and a pile of brood. This pile of brood had eventually became workers and resulted with me having a 25 worker, queenless colony. Fortunately I did not have to wait until they fly again to get a queen and was sent a colony by the friend who caught them. This time when I combined the colonies it had gone with no hiccup since in an even earlier experiment I had found that if workers are without a queen for two weeks they have no reaction to other colonies and other colonies did not react to them. Now I currently have a colony with around 40 to 45 workers and a few larvae. This season I do plan on doing multi-queen experiments as I do believe this species practices oligogyny due to how colony structure is constructed and colony size. I have a couple oligogyny founding setups which I do plan on trying. Anyways, enough speaking, here's a few pictures of the colony with the queen - mind you a lot of workers are out foraging and in the tunnels they dug.

 

Edited by ReignofRage, January 19 2022 - 7:43 PM.

[ReignofRage]

Update 26.ix.2022

 

The colony last posted was killed by a heat cabel that went rouge - the same incident killed a few other species I had. But there's better news, I collected queens this year along with a couple others and these now are soon to get workers. I will post newer pictures when some workers start to eclose; in the meantime here is a couple pictures.

 

[UtahAnts]

Great images, what are you using for your camera setup? These ants have such nice coloration, I found a single queen the last time I hiked in Oregon which was a nice suprise.

[ReignofRage]

I was using a Nikon D7000 and a Laowa 100mm lens to get those pictures.

[Ants_Dakota]

what makes this species/genus unique?

[ReignofRage]

The lack of detailed studies, interesting distribution such as a single endemic species in Japan, one species in Europe, and three in the New World. Some species are semi-clasutral, some are claustral. They are also live in areas of relatively high elevation for the most part. They are agressive with a potent sting and can take down large insects and arachnids with ease with minimal amounts of stinging. And, they also just look nice as well - viewing them hunt in the wild is quite interesting since they hunt live prey for the most part and take the entire prey item into the nest. Their nest structures are interesting - they make shallow nests that are spread out over large areas and are polydomous. 

[ReignofRage]

Update 11.x.2022

 

All colonies have anywhere from three to seven workers and nice brood piles. 

 

[AntsCali098]

They look really cool. The workers almost look like mini rugos

[Antlover24]

The lack of detailed studies, interesting distribution such as a single endemic species in Japan, one species in Europe, and three in the New World. Some species are semi-clasutral, some are claustral. They are also live in areas of relatively high elevation for the most part. They are agressive with a potent sting and can take down large insects and arachnids with ease with minimal amounts of stinging. And, they also just look nice as well - viewing them hunt in the wild is quite interesting since they hunt live prey for the most part and take the entire prey item into the nest. Their nest structures are interesting - they make shallow nests that are spread out over large areas and are polydomous.

Dang I didn't realize they're sting was that potent, maybe I'll try to live feed my colony.