125 replies to this topic

[OwlThatLikesAnts]

wow I love giant ants but I am in Canada where the Camponotus queens are as big as you majors and I have never found a colony, only majors harassing smaller ants and your journal is soo good that it made me jealous 

[Ljimmy009]

HEADS UP!

 

Planning to put together another big update full of pictures and details for tomorrow. It's been two months since my last update. Been meaning to but life's been getting heavvyyyyyyyy 

 

 

my own Ca02 when they first got workers I tried all three mealworms,fruit flies,And crickets(all separate days) and they preferred fruit flies the most. Their least favs were the mealworms, with crickets in the middle.

 

 

I just started breeding fruit flies again, the golden hydei variety this time around because my last culture died out and I didn't start a new one on time.

 

Anyhow, these ants seem to switch preference with food. At first, the superworms became one of their favorite food or so it seems. Now they don't care for it. And to think I was considering breeding them too (and to feed my skinks).

 

I'm somewhat considering taking out my red runner roaches. So instead of 1x Dubia and 1x Red Runner colonies, I might do 2x Dubias colonies and variety wise will just have to do with stuff I fatten them up with prior to feeding them off to my pets. Red runners were nice but I'm having a tad issue keeping their numbers high enough to do any kinda real feeding. Thinking back, whenever I need them, they didn't breed fast enough and when I don't need them, there were a bunch. Dubias and their ability to give live birth is faring a lot better than red runners and hatching those eggs. Dubias also are much bigger and meatier. However, they hunker down / burrow when scared and don't make very exciting live feeding bugs

 

 

 

 

 

Hey Bleep, TYSM for the answer. I liked your analogy use of driving cars 

.........fed them so much protein they got sick of just earwigs and crickets 

 

How's your ants doing now? It's been a month since your last post. About to do another big update of the colony. Prob post it tomorrow. You should consider posting a journal too, would be interesting to see.

Sup Bleep, my colony now has 13 workers. I already see a noticable size difference between the nanitics and my latest workers. They are doing very well and have a huge brood pile but no eggs yet. They just don't feel like laying this month, probably will put them in dispause next month.

[Ljimmy009]

Hey Bleep, how is everything doing? It's early September and I've been checking up on Formiculture a lot. It's a sad week because I've lost 4 workers in a week, but most of them were just nanitics. The brood pile is still very strong and the queen recently laid 5 more eggs probably as tribute to the deaths. Anyways, waiting on an update soon!

[Ljimmy009]

wow I love giant ants but I am in Canada where the Camponotus queens are as big as you majors and I have never found a colony, only majors harassing smaller ants and your journal is soo good that it made me jealous 

HAHA I would love to see majors harassing smaller ants, that just sounds so funny

But, on my trip to Yosemites last month, I saw a Camponotus Vicinus MINOR WORKER harassing a Camponotus Vicinus MAJOR WORKER which seemed funny because a minor worker was harassing a soldier that's literally 2 times larger than it! I brought my macro lens to Yosemites and captured them fighting, lol.

Heres a video of it. You can also see another minor worker's head still attached to the major's leg, which I think the major quickly dispatched of the minor worker but it's head still latched on. I used to have a harvester ant head attached to my show for A YEAR until it disappeared one day. I thought it was cool for it to latch onto my shoe, lol.

https://www.youtube....rts/dd0s6BR5uII

Edited by Ljimmy009, September 9 2024 - 8:24 AM.

[Yusteponant]

I'm getting my first CA 02 colony soon!

[Ljimmy009]

I'm getting my first CA 02 colony soon!

Nice! Good luck!