17 replies to this topic

[Sisyphe]

Way to reinforce this stupide stereotype...

 

Hello guys! I'm Sisyphe, a French myrmecologist.

I've been stalking reading you for a while now, and decided it was now time to jump aboard and present myself.

 

As you can guess, my colonies are mostly French, although I have several exotic ants too (the list should be in my signature).

 

 

As for American species, I've only had an experience with a Pogonomyrmex rugosus queen, that did not work to my great distress (it was a pain in the a** to lay my hands on such a species, and I tried everything I could to make her lay, but it never worked...).

 

 

See you around!

[Zeiss]

Bonjour, welcome to the forum!

[dspdrew]

Welcome.

[Gregory2455]

Hello.

[Jonathan21700]

Welcome!

[Alza]

Welcome.

[NightsWebs]

Welcome to the forum!  Rugosus seems to be very slow at least the colony I have is very slow.

[Mannomorth]

Hi, and welcome from Sweden

[klawfran3]

Welcome to the forum!

That's an astounding list of ants you got there, got any pics of the acromyrmex colony?

[Sisyphe]

got any pics of the acromyrmex colony?

 

 

Nothing of interest, because of the humidity, the fungus garden is barely visible (even though the fungus is bigger than a rugby ball). But I can try to take a picture of the foraging area when they are active, so that you can have an idea

[Sisyphe]

Here are some crappy pics that I took yesterday evening. Everything is quite blurry but I don't want to disturb them in the fungus just to take some pictures (on top of that, that'd probably mess with their humidity control which is never a good thing for the fungus...).

 

 

 

Here is the forage area, where I had put some red/white cabbage, some oat and some salad. It took them 4 hours to get rid of nearly everything. This weekend they'll have some raspberry leaves, since it's always been the most successful stuff.

 

 

 

Here is the fungus, but you won't see much, since there is so much humidity and leaves residue on the surface of the plastic.

 

 

 

And here is some yummy garbage disposal, which I should definitely clean, but I'm always delaying the inevitable.

Edited by Sisyphe, January 30 2016 - 8:01 AM.

[dspdrew]

Nice. Is there a lot of bad smells coming from setups with these ants? I have Acromyrmex versicolor, and other than the fungus itself, everything is bone dry and there is no smell at all.

[Sisyphe]

I can only smell the fungus if I put my nose against the gris on the upper lid, and it smells really nice.

 

The foraging area is bone dry too (except for a cup of water/argile balls that helps putting some moisture in the air, otherwise the workers are very slow and must go back to the nest every once in a while or die of dessication).

 

The garbage disposal needs to be draines every once in a while. It smells like used coffee. It's not bad, but I wouldn't say it's pleasant. In any case, there is no smell whatsoever in the room.

(I wouldn't say the same about my Pheidole noda colony   )

 

 

I have never seen a blog about Acromyrmex versicolor. What size are the workers?

Edited by Sisyphe, January 30 2016 - 9:31 AM.

[dspdrew]

Ah I see. Acromyrmex versicolor workers range in size from about 3 to 6 mm. I actually have a blog for them here (http://www.formicult...ated-1-23-2016/).

[klawfran3]

What is all the waste made of? Is it decayed, dead, liquefying fungus? And how do you keep the humidity up in the main habitat? The only setups I've seen are Drew's so yours is totally new.

 

Also what are in the cups in the outworld? I can see one has water with stones so they don't drown, but what's the white stuff?

[dspdrew]

And how do you keep the humidity up in the main habitat?

 

I'd like to know as well.

[Sisyphe]

The humidity setup is quite simple: there is none

 

The colony is big enough to maintain a constant humidity in the box (where there's hardly empty space anyway). They just use the humidity in the leaves they cut and process.

But when the colony was smaller, I used what is called "Seramis" here (can't find an English name) which consists in argile balls broken in tiny pieces and used for orchidaes. I put some in the foraging area and spray some water on it. They took them back to the main box and when the pieces were too dry, they brought them back to the foraging area so I could spray them some more. This way, there is no interaction with the main box, and no loss of air humidity

 

 

As for the garbage disposal, these are not rotten vegetals, but waste coming from the very fungus. Mushroom poo. Ahah.

[Trailandstreet]

Bonjour