11 replies to this topic

[BleepingBleepers]

I hear it happens in ant colonies but how often is it?

 

It's for my Camponotus CA02 colonies. Since I've gotten them late June, I don't think I've witnessed it before. Either it happens and I don't see it (sometimes during the late night) or I just have more larvae now and therefore see it more often or something more serious?

 

In the last month or so, for the first time, I noticed it 5 times. 1 of those times it was during the stage in which the larvae was spinning the cocoon but stopped for unknown reasons for several hours. The other times were pupae half way into their development, they look like ants but very white, I'm guessing about a week, maybe two into their development cycle, they didn't seem to react so they might be dead. The ants just start eating into the cocoon and then eating the pupa. Edit: The temperature is about the same too, 76 - 78.5 F, water tower near max, water on piece of paper towel in the outworld to drink. Pretty much the same setup for all these months. I have added a second outworld, but don't see that being the issue, mature ants seem perfectly fine.

 

The brood still seems to be developing normally, other than this issue.

 

Just wondering why now and so many. I don't recall changing anything in their diet, they have fat gasters, a lot of protein over other day (normal feeder insects I've always been feeding) and same thing for sugar water that I mix myself. I have up the humidity a bit for the last week or so, enough to see more condensation.

 

 

 

Journal in signature if you want to know more about the colony if that'll help with troubleshooting the issue.

 

Thanks beforehand.

Edited by BleepingBleepers, November 18 2023 - 5:02 PM.

[100lols]

Hey! So, from my research it seems normal for ants to trash pupae during development for various reasons such as: disease prevention, genetic defects, maybe some kind of environmental stress, overpopulation(not likely), or sometimes just too many nest disturbances for some people. I think it helps make sure the colony's overall health is optimum?

Just some of my thoughts/reading I’ve done…

[BleepingBleepers]

Hey! So, from my research it seems normal for ants to trash pupae during development for various reasons such as: disease prevention, genetic defects, maybe some kind of environmental stress, overpopulation(not likely), or sometimes just too many nest disturbances for some people. I think it helps make sure the colony's overall health is optimum?

Just some of my thoughts/reading I’ve done…

Alright. Yeah, I'm reading some of that too, but at the same time, if it was for disease prevention or if the larva somehow was fed something that had pesticides / toxic item, I found it odd that they would choose to eat the larva since whatever disease or poison would spread to the ants that eat it, no?

 

Still new to keeping ants so finding out what's normal and abnormal. Interesting stuff.

 

But thanks for the reply

 

I updated my journal in thoughts of this, but I think after I did the heat cable (how it's attached to my formicarium to heat it), the heat distribution might've changed and the low end of formicarium became too cold and caused some few larvae to not develop well. Usually the ants would move them around but I'm guessing they're not perfect and some larvae were left out in the cold, literally.

 

That's my thought at least. I'm trying to keep them warm, but I'm right around the borderline of their cold threshold for brood development. Think it got 73-74 sometimes on the low end, especially during the cold night. My room's temperature fluctuates a lot, 68-75 cold season, the heating bill is ridiculous and I barely use it and it goes up 100 just to heat a small room bleh....

[OhNoNotAgain]

So my C. fragilis I observed eating their pupae come fall/winter, at least the first year or two.

They seemed to really enjoy the process of ripping apart their developing sisters and chowing down on the soft protein. I mean it was seriously YUCK. I know this is irrational human thinking, but I was honestly kind of repelled by my fraggles. It looked like some bizarre ant cult behavior. There was no reason for them to eat the pupae - they had plenty of food.

Come spring warmth (when I turned up their heat, that is), the behavior stopped and they grew their brood normally.

Since moving them to a Nucleus some years ago I honestly haven't been able to watch them very closely any more, but I should try.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, December 1 2023 - 8:06 AM.

[BleepingBleepers]

 

Yeah, I kinda felt a bit repulsed by the action myself and indeed, at first I thought it might be the lack of protein but they had fat gasters and I feed them often enough, at least it should be enough that they wouldn't have to resort to such drastic measures.

I also feel like it's the change in temperature, bit lower than usual even though I try to keep the heat up. They must also feel some kinda change in the seasons. In the last week, my carpenter's egg pile also went down and at first I thought they were signaling that they might indeed want a diapause as I wrote in my journal that I was going to look out for signs but today I noticed that the queen is back to her egg laying once again. The pile is growing and brood still developing.

 

I've made note of such changes in the timeline I posted in my journal here, increasing the amount of details as time passes.

 

COLONY DEVELOPMENT TIMELINE (click here)

 

I feel like the cold temperature and us unnaturally heating them during the colder months kinda causes a confusion in their psychological state.

Like a part of them is thinking "oh dang, it's the cold season, time to trim down brood and get ready" and "wait, it's still kinda warm though so maybe we should just keep supporting the brood's development??"

Even though it was brought up above how ants will sometimes do this to cull their brood and keep it healthy, I do find it odd that it's suddenly happening when the cold months came in and so often, hence my thoughts above.

I AM hoping that when Spring comes again, that it happen a lot less often. I'm still hoping to get my first MAJOR and watching them chomp down on some promising cocoons feels a bit backwards and counterproductive.

I've seen it happen probably 4-5 more times since I made this post. Thankfully, there's more good than bad and the brood is growing still, just not as fast as during the warmer seasons.

 

 

I'm also happy to say that my second ant species, the Ectos, seem like I was able to fix their pupae eating problems that also plagued them but for different reasons.

 

So all in all, enduring the cold months and hoping spring comes soon.

Edited by BleepingBleepers, December 2 2023 - 1:32 AM.

[ANTdrew]

Myrmy’s Law is an inescapable part of ant keeping: all things being equal, ants will always do what you don’t want or expect them to do, like eating promising pupae.

[100lols]

Ant logic and human logic just don’t mix from time to time. At least at first glance. Maybe they could tell something we can’t? Or maybe the queen is just producing so much now you’re seeing more growth defects.

My P. vistana have had some pupae going in the trash lately. Weird stuff.

[BleepingBleepers]

Or maybe the queen is just producing so much now you’re seeing more growth defects

Probably but it does feel weird that I'm just now noticing. Their number increase has gone up but not insanely high from like the last time they jumped up 40 workers.

But yeah, it is what it is like you said with ants. I do notice fewer workers getting eaten after I massively bumped up how much protein I gave them. Seems like they were aiming for larger workers as quite a few larvae now are bigger than what I usually see, including some exceptionally large ones. I'm giving them a 2 mayyyybe 3 instar dubia roach every other day which is, IMO, so much more than I'm use to.

 

Today, Serafine did say something that I found interesting

 

https://www.formicul...olony/?p=234515

if it happens a lot broadening the diet might help more than just adding more of the same food.

 

 

I think I have been trying more variety but 95% of the diet still consists of dubia and red runner roaches. I tried fruit flies but they're not yet into it (I wrote in my journal that I think the flies were more of a second year special as I do notice they have an especially thick exoskeleton simply from handling them so they might take bigger workers or majors to deal with them OR the ants just don't find them worth the hassle atm, unlike the roaches that are so meaty and much larger). So while I do feed them the different protein sources that I mentioned on the first page of my journal, they tend to be more as treats, sometimes even once a month when I get to eat them myself.

 

So in the end, I have forgotten my goal to add more variety to their diet.

So the next time I head to the local pet stores, I'll try to pick up some mealworms and crickets, hopefully they'll do a mix of both for a dollar and I'll refrigerate it. I usually avoid crickets as they're smelly and tend to be filled with nasty parasites. And they bite....lol.

I do hope that the carpenters start picking up on the fruit flies though, I bred them mainly for the carpenters but now it's just the Ectos (my second ants) that actually eat them.

Edited by BleepingBleepers, December 3 2023 - 7:26 PM.

[BleepingBleepers]

Just want to report / record that I haven't noticed any more pupae getting eaten since I've increased their protein. I haven't gotten a chance to buy any crickets and mealworms yet so I haven't increased the different kinds of proteins. Just been feeding them dubias and red runners that I fatten and raised up myself. It's a roach every other day.

 

Might still be a bit early for me to truly say, but I still think the same from my previous post, that I believe maybe they were pushing for larger workers or something, didn't have the protein, became desperate and ate the pupae (which, again, sounds counterproductive).

Just trying to make sense of it. Like the thought of them eating defective pupae doesn't fit too well because why so suddenly they're getting them during that point?

 

They're still heading to 40+ workers each month except this time around the workers are bigger.

 

Have lost, from what I've seen, 10 pupae due to this thus far, so we can assume it's a few more without me seeing.

 

But no pupae have been seen being eaten for the last two weeks or so. I did panic a bit when I came in one time a few days ago and THOUGHT I was witnessing them eating another one but then saw the live worker nearby lol. Though I have been busy with Black Friday and the holiday seasons to look in as often.

Documenting this in my journal.

Edited by BleepingBleepers, December 9 2023 - 9:30 AM.

[ANTdrew]

Roaches are already the most nutritious feeder around. Do you gut load yours?

[BleepingBleepers]

Roaches are already the most nutritious feeder around. Do you gut load yours?

Yeah in a sense, that's why I didn't think of getting mealworms and crickets (tho I will next Friday when I'm going down towards that area of town). Probably going to freeze the crickets before feeding them to kill any parasites.

 

I give them general mills TOTAL cereal, soaked oatmeal, fruits.

 

I like roaches because they're easy to breed, don't bite like crickets do, don't smell nearly as bad, don't make sounds, and have a high protein percentage. Their exoskeletons are thin too (at least the two types I keep)

Though the downside would be that I and many others have developed an allergy to their dust (dry, dusty frass especially), kicking up into the air during maintenance time. I wear a mask for that and try to take shallow breaths and go about it quickly.

[ANTdrew]

Malnutrition is definitely not the issue then. Maybe super load them with something like Repashy Bug Burger every once in a while.

Edited by ANTdrew, December 9 2023 - 12:24 PM.