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[bunyan]

Lasius Umbratus
Place caught: under heavy rock
Location caught: forest in Belgium
Found with a bunch of smaller L.niger workers
Description from what i know (not taken from the internet, i will update if i see changes in it)
L.umbratus is a parasitic ant species wich means: after mating, she lands, sheds her wings and searches for another young nest (usually other Lasius species) to take over. This is done by the L.umbratus queen luring one or two workers of her target nest and kills them, after wich she obtains the smell and pheromones* of her target colony. Then the L. umbratus queen proceeds to infiltrate the colony, "telling" the other workers that she is her queen (note: this does not work out well sometimes). When she has all the workers on her side, she or the workers proceed to kill the original queen. The workers will care for thier new queen and for her newly laid eggs. Eventually, the original workers are replaced by the workers of the L umbratus.
*pheromones: chemical trails used to communicate to the members of the colony
10-21-2016: Placed queen into test tube, introduced two Tetramorium Spp. workers. No fighting yet, wich is a very good sign. after about 30 min. the queen started acting up, first her front 2 legs were bent inwards (quite distressing for me), then, after a little whyle, i took another look, it looked like she died, i was in panic, eventually i saw her moving, after wich i calmed down, but she had a lot of trouble standing straight. After an hour i introduced some brood from my Lasius niger colony (3 eggs and 1 pupa). She still struggled for hours. Now (20:30) she is standing almost properly again, but i'll have to see if she pulls through the night (i'm nervous since she's VERY rare here).
10-22-2016: Queen shows signs of recovery. She hasn't touched the given brood yet. The tetramorium workers are not touching her, yet also not fighting her.
Afternoon update: I took away the Tetramorium workers and replaced them with about 4 wild L.niger workerd. Some had mites, witch i let free again. I do not yet know if the introduction is succesfull. Though it seems to be okay for now, i'll wait and see.
Late evening update: I noticed one worker had a mite, so i set it back in it's nest, one escaped and 2 were biting the queen's antennae, so i put them alone in a small container. Only one is left with the queen now, but she's a bit spastic what close to the queen, bit she seems to accept the queen, wich is great, i'll wait a few days and slowly add the two workers that were originally biting the queens antennae.
10-27-2016: I gave the queen and lone worker a very small outworld, and they immedietly went outside, now they're back in the test tube.
10-28-2016: The worker escaped somehow... But i put in a new one, and it behaves the same as the original one i put in. Now (19:11) the worker and queen are both walking in the outworld now.
It seems the queen passed away just now... She was doing fine today, but she walked around like she was drunk for a minute or 2, and then she died

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END OF JOURNAL

[CallMeCraven]

RIP. May your next ones do better.

[Canadian anter]

Lasius social parasites only use other Lasius as hosts