2 replies to this topic

[Yeehana255]

Since I have two of these colonies and I've noticed this in both...my question is, has anybody noticed 1 ant that is bigger than the rest (besides the queen of course)? I have 2 of the same Formica species, about a month apart from founding age, and both of them, after the first wave of nanitics have produced 1 noticeably larger worker. It is not just the gaster with stored food, but from the size of the head, body, legs...everything. my older colony had a huge growth recently and I've been getting bigger workers, more along matured sizes. But the one ant in each colony still remains the biggest. I've noticed that they don't hover around specific duties that the colony does, like brood keeping, watching pupae, gathering food, tending the queen, etc. They both seem like managers. I did however, drop a live lesser mealworm in the older colony's outworld and the worm decided to go through the vinyl tubing. So when that worm was maybe 6 inches from the nest entrance, it came out and lassoed the worm for the others to kill. Now, I do have foragers which are smaller, and then I have plenty of bigger ants that help with the heavy loads like excavation and chomping meats, but this one ant isn't that primary chore doer. Just seems to me like a real micro manager. Has anybody else experienced this?

I recently got a xenvo phone camera so I've been testing this macro lens. The reflection from the tubing interferes with a good picture. Ill try and upload some to this topic when I get her in the outworld

[Serafine]

My Camponotus produced a small major (yes a major, my Camponotus are a species that has full caste dimorphism) as their 5th or 6th worker. She was mostly used as a storage container and a can opener (for cracking hard-shelled food items) and she still stuck out when they had 40 workers (including several medium-sized workers). I don't think she ever left the nest before the bigger majors (the ones with the heart-shaped heads) arrived.

 

My assessment is that some ant species invest in a single big worker early on when they are particularly well-fed. It grants them access to more food sources (as the smaller workers just can't crack the more hard-shelled carcasses) and also allows for increased food storage (which grants a higher chance to survive bad times when there's no food to be found).

 

Edited by Serafine, August 26 2022 - 10:00 AM.

[Yeehana255]

Makes sense..I just figured ants want to get numbers on their side before fine tuning their roster. I know the queens do generational eggs poops, at least for the Formica I have. They always spread out the batches by age...and yes the different requirements for them like moisture dryness and heat. The only thing that gets me is that I have other majors of all equal size and the 1 worker is just a little bigger. They are both the real brown/burgundy color as well where as the other majors are very dark brown to black. Maybe that one was fed a radioactive roach heart lol.