I've been participating on this forum for about 3 months now, but I should probably follow the expectations of this site and formally introduce myself as a relatively new member.
My name is Dan and I'm a family-man from State College, PA. I'm new to ant-keeping and I just started this past July. Prior to ant-keeping, I've always found bugs to be interesting, but never before to the extent that I'd spend money on the interest. Now it's a different story.
In addition to being an ant-keeper, I also ...
- Am a professional software engineer
- Am a landlord
- Have a passion for biology and a lot of science-background
- Enjoy composing music on a synthesizer and computer
- Creating digital art
- Manipulating and/or restoring photographs
- Using Sketchup for 3D modelling
- Enjoy strategy video games, including SimAnt
- Hate mowing lawns
I currently have roughly 60 queens. Here are the species:
- S. molesta,
- B. depelis,
- C. cerasi,
- A. fulva,
- L. nearcticus
It's always difficult for me to convey to folks why I'm particularly interested in ants. Please allow me an opportunity to present them from my own perspective. Take, for example, a plant or fungus. In order for the organism to acquire additional resources and be more reproductive, the organism grows to new locations and in physical mass. In the case of a spider, the spider patiently waits for resources (food/water) to come to it. And in the case of a dolphin, the dolphin moves to wherever resources are bountiful. These are standard survival strategies. The ant survival strategy is completely alien by comparison almost every other organism (save termites, bees, etc.). In addition to making more reproductive ants, reproductive ants can alternatively use their DNA to breed themselves slave-machine-children that will fetch the resources they need in order to pass on there genes and increase their power. These slave-machine-children look like, and even behave like the particular queen! In fact, it's been regularly observed that two queens of the same species can have personalities and those personalities are also passed to the workers. Workers should always be thought of as mechanical extensions of the queen instead of as atomic organisms.
Well, now it's official - I've introduced myself. Thanks for your time!
Franz
