hmm cool set-up!
I like the white colouring, it will help the ants to really pop out. I also like the divider set-up, with appropriate gaps that ants can select and move brood through. Are those spaces designed to be fitted with cotton or some sort of moisture/feeding apparatus?
I am wondering if the entrance will fit a certain size of vinyl tubing (standards such as 1/2 inch or 1/4 inch sizes are great). That would be awesome, because then it can rapidly be connected to other set-ups with ease and without the need of finding some kind of adapter. Great for ant keepers without lots of time on their hands.
Also wondering, is the cotton you mentioned for watering and such-like? If so it would also be a great idea for modularity to make another hole near the back of the formicarium for standard sized test tubes to slot into, (or alternatively a 3d-printed plug if the test-tubes are undesired) so that you can provide interchangeable moisture, as well as removing brood if ants choose to nest in it, in order to harvest pupae for parasitic species and whatnot.
Great prototype! I always love it when people try new designs, it's so fun to see how the ants behave inside of them.
The “trap” is very small, so it can simulate the small founding chambers ants make in the wild, I can really easily change the size and the size and redo the thing so that it can be used as a modular formicarium, also unfortunately the size of the hole is 5mm in diameter but I still am able to edit the thing and add a 9mm vinyl tubing adapter
This is the “ant queen trap” compared to my Crematogaster’s formicarium setup, the dimensions of this prototype is 22 x 17 x10 mm (L x W x H) here you can see the cotton inside the trap, the reason why I added holes is so there is better humidification. If this ends up not working as an ant queen trap, I will just recycle this design and transform it into a modular formicarium.
