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[QuietWind01]

Hey guys! So about 3 weeks or so ago, I received my Pogonomyrmex colony from TarHeelAnts. I got them eith a Labyrinth and so far they're doing great, with roughly ~120 workers. (I've had 1-2 dozen eclose since I got them! I had 5 eclose just last night, they're starting to grow rapidly!) Anyway, I've noticed that they have made their "graveyard" in the corner of the outworld right next to the outworld's expandable hole plug. They have maybe 5 or 6 dead workers there. That's not the weird thing, but I wanted to make it clear that the issue is differentiated from the normal graveyard. Anyway, the actual (issue?) Is, there is a chamber in the nest that they have kept about 3-4 dead workers at. All of them are smaller than usual. The odd thing is, they are all missing ALL of their legs, and 1 or two of them are missing heads. Is this normal for this species? It is my first time keeping Pogonomyrmex, so I've never experienced this before. Also, to add to this, because originally I was going to ignore it because it seemed like maybe they were killing the weaker workers that may not add much value (more of a burden to the colony and dismantling them for nutrition--but I just noticed today that 2 of the newly eclosed workers, that are still very white but moving around a bit, have a couple of legs missing. This is the part that got me concerned.

Anyway, should I be worried about this? Or is this normal for Pogonomyrmex? If I SHOULD be worried, how can I prevent it? Besides this, the colony seems to love their setup and seems extremely healthy, and they are VERY active. The queen is pumping out eggs like an assembly line, and I even feed them bits and pieces of gut loaded superworms with sunburst ant nectar, which they very much appreciate (even though I could easily omit the protein, it seems to have drastically increased their activity and population explosion). Anyway, cheers!