A couple of experiences lately have made me realize that we shouldn't give up on drowned ants. The first instance happened when I put a small Lasius brevicornis colony in a founding formicarium, accidently overwatered it, and found half of the workers seemingly drowned and lifeless in the morning. I dried up the excess water and pulled some of their lifeless bodies up onto dry land while I cursed my stupidity. Imagine my surprise that evening when the "drowned" ants were alive and well and setting up house with the rest of them.
Today I received a Lasius neoniger founding colony with a slight water mishap. Although there wasn't a lot of water, a number of workers appeared to be drowned and lifeless. Again, I dried up the excess water and pulled a number of victims out and dried them. For some this was all it took and they were up and running while others looked beyond hope. I put two hopeless cases in a seperate test tube and within four hours they were running too!
There are still a couple of victims in the test tube, I'm hoping that drying them and warming them up will revive them, we'll see. Don't give up on drowned ants if it ever happens to one of your colonies. Ants that I gave up for dead were revived when they were dried off and warmed up.
