And Now... The moment you've all been waiting for...
The king of leafcutters has returned! After an excruciating 15 months or so, I have FINALLY gotten my hands on Atta mexicana again! For those who are perhaps new here, I have an old (and very popular) journal detailing the life of my old Atta mexicana colony before they were tragically cooked to death by my dad (accidentally). If you haven't read that journal yet, or it's just been a while, please go do so, as it's a great read. https://www.formicul...+atta +mexicana
Rather than reviving that journal, I have decided to start a new one to "preserve" the story of that old colony from beginning to end. Maybe that's a bad idea, but whatever, lol.
Now, let's get into the good stuff, what you're all here for.
On August 1st, 2023, after two long and painful years of not having an Atta colony, I finally, FINALLY managed to witness a nuptial flight of the species, right here in Arizona. And let me just tell you, it was fantastic. I made a whole video about it on my YouTube, and I would very much appreciate if you checked it out. It's a fun one:
https://youtu.be/t0s...sr8kYD1giD9iYP6
After the horrifically exhausting experience of actually finding queens, it was time for the most painful part of them all: Waiting 6-7 weeks for workers, and dealing with failed queens. And let me tell you, for whatever reason, these queens were FAILING. I have no idea why, but unlike the 60-80%+ success rates recorded with this species by most Mexican antkeepers, my success rate has been horrible: currently only around 45% of the original ~70 queens are still alive after 3 weeks. Granted, mortality rates have slowed dramatically recently, but I've still got a few queens doing poorly, and am still experiencing a couple of random deaths here and there. I'll talk later about how I've been managing that.
But for now, let's get some dang pictures going already!
August 2nd, just a day after capture. Small fungus ball and some eggs.
August 15th, 2 weeks after capture. Fungus garden is now the size of a nickel, with the first larvae beginning to appear.
August 22nd, 3 weeks after capture. Fungus now the size of a quarter, with larvae growing well.
And that's about as far as the queens that are founding normally have gotten, and so far so good. But what about all of those queens that have failed?
Well, as some of you may know, I recently began working at Arizona State University's Social Insect Research Group. Within the specific ant lab I work in, there is an Atta mexicana colony. An Atta mexicana colony that I technically own. It belonged to a friend of mine, was brought into the lab for display, and then I was given ownership in exchange for a Camponotus ulcerosus colony that I found. However, that friend also really, really didn't want me to take the colony home, as everyone in the lab loves having them on display. I agree, and so I told him that I would leave the colony at the lab UNLESS I failed to catch more Atta this year, in which case I'd take them home, because I refuse to go another year without Atta at home. Luckily, that didn't happen, so everyone wins. Here's a picture of that colony:
But why am I telling you all of this? Well, because I technically own and have been caring for this Atta colony for a few months now, I also have the right do to whatever I want with it: Including taking as much fungus as I want to donate to my new queens. Doing so has saved a decent number that had lost their pellets or otherwise had their fungus die, but still a surprising number have failed to take care of boosted fungus, and simply let it die shortly after receiving it. Which, as you can imagine, is incredibly frustrating.
As a last resort to try and save these most stubborn queens, I decided to try introducing both live workers and brood along with the fungus, as I have heard that Atta mexicana workers can be pretty accepting of new queens. And lo and behold, that rumor was correct, and I now have 15 Atta mexicana "colonies" comprised of workers, fungus, and pupae from the colony at the lab, and a fresh queen that had failed founding.
Now, to say it has worked flawlessly would be a lie. For one, I overhydrated many of the setups, causing the new fungus to basically instantly die. Oops. A few other colonies, for seemingly no reason, also failed to care for their fungus. Now, only 3 are left with living fungus, however those 3 are absolutely thriving. They are cutting plants extremely well, growing the fungus quickly, and the queens are laying like crazy. It'll still take another 6-7 weeks for the eggs to develop into the first biological workers, but giving these queens a kickstart was definitely the right call. I also plan to boost the 12 failed colonies again, after drying out the nesting chambers a bit, which should hopefully get them up and running just fine.
Here's a quick video of one of the successful boosted colonies:
https://youtube.com/...o?feature=share
And a video of one of the queens founding normally:
And that's about all I have for you for now, which granted, is quite a lot. Hopefully you all are excited to read about me keeping Atta again, as spoiler alert: It's going to be bigger and better this time. And that's a promise! 500k workers or bust!!
Edited by CheetoLord02, May 18 2024 - 7:43 PM.
