This morning, my Chelaner antarcticus colony arrived from Ants in NZ along with some other supplies I purchased. It's a small colony with about 10 workers, although there's around 10 larvae as well. The farm came with the Ants In NZ Ant food, a food dish, tweezers and a brush for $40NZD (~$30USD) which I think is a pretty good deal. The only thing I'm not a huge fan of is the fact the test tubes have rotten wood in them which I'm pretty sure is unnecessary, but still works. Anyways, enough of the review and onto the ants!
Once I unboxed them and got them set up, they took a while to start moving. The colony must have been resting. One thing I've noticed is that they are quite slower compared to the introduced Prolasius advena, Nylanderia sp., Ochetellus glaber, etc. that I'm used to seeing, something I've also noticed with the native species Huberia striata.
I fed them a frozen click beetle segment and the Ants In NZ Ant Food on the dish as a homewarming gift. I ended up replacing the dish with a small plastic tube filled with sugar water, as they were simply navigating around the dish. Sure enough, they started drinking from it immediately. They weren't interested in lugging the Click Beetle segment into their nest, but they seem to be taking frequent nibbles at it.
Here's the nest.
The workers are beautiful.
And here's a view of the Queen, workers, males, and brood.
That's it for now. I'm really excited to track this colonies development and see what happens!
See ya soon.
