26 replies to this topic

[NotAxo]

Monday, 24 June, 2024

A few days ago, there was a large nuptial flight of 5+ species at the same time. That evening, I caught a Single Aphoenogaster, 3 C. Irratians, 3 C. Vitiosus. I haven't got new test tubes so I have placed all of them in small containers with a hydrated cotton ball.

Updates :

C. Parius 01 :

- A dozen new eggs and a few new larvae! 3 new pupae, and now a total of 5 Nanitics!

C. Parius 02

- No new larvae or eggs, but now she has 3-4 Pupae. I didn't count caused she started getting stressed.

Trapjaw Ant

- 6 new eggs! I thing one hatched because only one of them is egg shaped and longer and whiter than the rest. The other 5 and slightly yellow and perfect elongated ovals.

- The queen has a new Nanitic!

Carebara Diversa

- I know I absolutely should never have done this, but I checked her. I looked around, 20 seconds in and out mission.

- She has an eggs bundle 1.5 times the size of her faster (mind blown). Now I will keep my promise and no peeking until July 20th

That's all for today, thanks for reading and have a great day!

[NotAxo]

Awesome updates!!!

I will be moving both of my C. Parius to a new topic as the finally have nanitics! WooHoo!

Tuesday, July 2^nd, 2024

Apheonogaster sp. :
- The old queen was very stressed an on the verge of dying. But today evening, I saw a random dealate apheonogaster of the same sp. wandering around and she walked into a small colony of Diacamma rogusum. Before she was stung, I quickly shooed the Diacamma away and tucked her in the almost pristine ttube the other queen was in. I disposed of the other queen.

 

C. Irratians 01 :
- This queen was caught a few days ago and was put in a small water bottle with cotton in it. I finally moved her into a new test tube and found that she has laid at least a dozen eggs! She is very attentive of the eggs and cleans it every now and then. Lets hope the best for her!

C. Irratians 02 :
- This queen is not a deal ate and she layer some eggs in her test tube but is not taking care of them. I think she is a infertile queen.

Trapjaw Ants :
- The test tube had an accident the last day, killing her eggs and pupa. The queen and nanitic are safely in a new tube and she has 4 eggs at the moment.

C. Vitiosus 01 :
- This is a single queen setup and the queen is a dealate. She has a fine batch of eggs and is tending to them quite nicely. This is one of my favorite sp. so lets hop for the best! She may have a few larvea

C. Vitiosus 02 :
- This is a 2 queen setup, with 2 weird queens. First one is a normal dealate and second is a partial dealate. This is because she was absolutely going nuts after I captured her. She would raise all 6 limbs on the air and belly flop on the ground till I shake her. Then she does it again. After I cut off her wings carefully using a blade, she is back to normal. They have eggs, but I'm not sure if its fertile or not. They are tending to it just satisfactorily

Carebara Diversa
- I know I promised not to check on her but this morning, I checked on her. Sad news, one third of her eggs are gone...

But one third of the remaining eggs are larvae!!! She did divide her eggs into 3 groups last time I checked so I think the rest were trophic eggs. I think we can expect nanitics in maybe, say, 10 days?!

That's all for today, thanks for reading this!

If you want to check out my C. Prius, ill send out a new topic as soon as possible!

Edited by NotAxo, July 3 2024 - 12:13 AM.

[NotAxo]

Wednesday, July 3^rd, 2024 :

 

C. Vitiosus 02 :

 

C. Vitiosus 01 :

 

C. Irratians 02 :

 

C. Irratians 01 :

 

Aphoenogaster sp. :

 

If you can ID the aphoenogaster, big thanks!

[ANTdrew]

It is spelled Aphaenogaster.

[NotAxo]

It is spelled Aphaenogaster.

Thank you

[NotAxo]

UPDATES :

 

I'm going to start off with all the Camponotus sp.

 

C. vitiosus 01 :

 

The queen is doing very well and has a neat stack of eggs and larvae. She has 11 eggs, and 2 larvae. The larvae and looking very healthy and they may pupate later in a few days.

 

 

C. vitiosus 02 (PAIR) :

 

This pair isn't very promising, and the alate queen is not very caring for the brood. The half dealate cares for the eggs, but isn't the best mother. They currently have 12 eggs only.

 

 

C. irratians 01 :

 

This lady is very beautiful in its coloring. She currently has 10 eggs and 6 larvae in the first few instars.

 

 

C. irratians 02 :

 

This queen may be a dud. She is very poor at caring for her eggs. She has 12 eggs currently in 4 stacks around the tube. She actively cares for the largest batch.

 

 

M. brunnea 01 :

 

This queen is pumping out eggs at this point. She has a mind-boggling 24 eggs at the time of this photo. There may be a few newly hatched larvae about at this time of the post.

 

 

M. brunnea 02 :

 

Just as with all the '02' queens in this post, this queen is also going downhill. I've got another dealate queen ant and she is placed in a temporary tube with little water. She already laid 5 eggs...

 

 

D. rogusum :

 

I should've posted this along with my first M. brunnea catch, but I caught an entire Diacamma colony. They were situated under a wood block with was kind of buried under the dirt. I caught them all and replaced the wood. the next day, I returned and caught the rest who were confused where the rest of the workers were. There should be around 35 workers. The gamergate wasn't shook by the incident and still shot out eggs. Right now, they have 2 larvae about the size of their gaster.

 

 

 

Here's some photos of them drinking sugar water :

 

 

 

 

[NotAxo]

It’s been a while since the last update, and there’s been quite a lot happening!

 

Updates :

 

C. irratians 01 :

 

Read about them here : https://www.formicul...atians-journal/

 

C. irratians 02 :

 

Not much has changed yet, but we should start seeing workers soon. Her behavior has been increasingly promising, and the brood pile is growing. Same amount of brood for this queen (still a bit scattered).

 

 

C. Vitiosus 01 :

 

Read about them here : https://www.formicul...tiosus-journal/

 

C. Vitiosus 02 (PAIR) :

 

Just like with the other colony, they’re doing well and showing even more promising signs. They still have the same number of brood as earlier.

 

 

M. brunnea 01 : 

 

This queen has been unfortunately killing some of her larvae, causing their numbers to drop from 14 to 5. I'm unsure why she's exhibiting this behavior, but it seems likely that she might be feeding the deceased larvae to the larger ones.

 

 

M. brunnea 02 :

 

As usual, the earlier queen has passed away. This is now the fourth or fifth 02 queen documented in this journal. The new queen is showing great promise—she laid 5 eggs within the first 24 hours in the tube and should now have around 10-12 eggs.

 

 

Carebara diversa :

 

This colony might not strictly belong in this forum, but I’d rather keep it here for now rather than start a new thread. I’ll let them remain in this journal until their numbers improve a bit.

 

Despite the previous die-out, the colony is showing promise again. There are at least 20 larvae and 8 pupae in that impressive brood pile. I’m hopeful that these ladies can bounce back from their recent troubles. They currently have 4 workers.

 

 

D. rogusus :

 

Unfortunately, this colony experienced a massive die-out last week, and now the entire colony is gone. It’s disheartening to see a once-promising colony, which had grown to 4 larvae and about a dozen eggs, come to an end. It’s always tough to lose such an interesting colony. ( I also do not know why I had this colony in this journal...)

 

 

That’s it for this week, folks. In the next update, it’s likely that only the M. brunnea will be left here.

Edited by NotAxo, August 2 2024 - 10:41 PM.