40 replies to this topic

[AntsBrazil]

Hello,I'm bringing my Pachycondyla Journal to this forum, this first post will be the same content that I had in this journal in another forum.

 

 

First post:17/10/16

Hello guys, to start this journal, I would like to tell you guys just a little about me.

I'm from Brazil, I study computer science in a very renowned university here from Brazil. I started loving ants after watching some AC videos on youtube. I live in two places, so my parents will maybe have to help me feed the ants, 4 days with the ants, and 3 days where I study (Niterói - Rio de Janeiro).

I have never had a colony(or at least eggs), my first ants were 2 leaf cutters that I released because they seem to be too difficult to keep.

Now lets talk about the ants that I'll be making the journal about:

Now is summer on Brazil and there's ants(and spiders and all kind of stuff) every where. I found a Pachycondyla on my garden, I was very happy with that luck. Then I saw another one, another one... They are every where now.

 

The Pachycondyla's are in test tubes for almost 2 days. Yesterday I bought some Tupperware to make the Pachycondyla's outworld(as suggested, since they are semi-claustral). Today I started to prepare them as I showed on another topic, but as in this one I'll be reporting every thing will post them again.

My journal will be with as many relevant photos as I can take(with my horrible cell phone camera (Galaxy S3) + 

Approaching lens). I think that photos are great because they make people that don't like to read a lot(like me) come and check, and maybe get interested and read, also provide good info.

OBS#1: Please help me make my journal by suggesting things, I don't speak english very well, I try to don't use google translate to learn how to write well. So if you see me writing something wrong please tell me. Also if you want to see something special like closer photos, maybe talk more about something... please fell free to ask.

OBS#2:I'm a noob ant keeper, so I would like A LOT suggestions about how to do stuff.

 

Thanks for reading until here, this is probably the biggest text in english that I ever wrote.

 

 

Picked some dirt, rocks and branches:

 

Organized the stuff:

 

Inside:

 

 

 

 

 

The ants:

 

 

 

First update: 18/10/16

Last night I did some search on antwiki and others, I found out that this ant is mostly active in the day, so maybe me keeping them in the dark is not a good thing, I'll leave them in the dark anyways(if you guys don't recommend me to don't).

Antwiki says that "Relatively little is known about its habits" so I guess that I'll help the community with that.

Other thing that I discovered is that the workers lay eggs( :?:  :?:  :?: ) "Wheeler (1900b) reported on egg production by workers of P. harpax, which he interpreted as being ergatoid queens but which are more likely just normal workers laying haploid eggs, as is common in Ponerinae". I don't thing that my Pachycondyla is harpax since antwiki says that they don't live where I live... But this workers laying eggs is very crazy   .

Also found out that this ant stings, thank God I found out through a video of Pachycondylas killing an cockroach, I hope that they never sting me. 

 

I placed the nests in a drawer since the chest was giving me too much trouble to take the nests, place food...

 

Ant#1 - ate the worm(or moved it somewhere else).

Ant#2 - that I placed a dead unidentified dead alate ate it, left the worm intact.(I only placed the alate on this nest, because I just had one.)

Ant#3 - did not eat the worm.

 

This morning I placed to the 3 ants a piece of banana and parts of a dead scorpion that I killed last night(it's very rare to see scorpions around here). I removed the tail just to be sure. I decided to place the food on the top of some plastic so the dirt don't get dirt( is this right  :?: )

This afternoon I checked and Ant#2 ate the scorpion parts, the other 2 didn't. 

Also nobody ate the banana( :cry: ). I'll try some cotton with sugar and water.

The bad boy:

 

 

I was noticing that they didn't stay inside the test tube, so they probably were going to lay eggs in the dirt and I would have no control. With that said I decided to renovate their nest(just a little bit). I placed some dirt on the top of the test tubes, but leaving space behind the wall so I can see inside, don't know if they will move inside, but it is already difficult to see inside  :oops: (some dirt escaped my protections).

 

They were like this:(Ant#2)

 

 

Now it looks like this:(Ant#1 is under the branch)

 

 

 

 

 

I placed the branches and rocks so the dirt don't cover (our) view of the inside of the test tube. Engineering stuff 

 

I found some termites and managed to place a lot of them inside a glass pot, with a little piece of wood, i'll be feeding the ants with them tomorrow. Also found a store that sells alive mealworms but they don't have it now, by the end of the week they will have, so then I'll have a proper food source. 

 

OBS: I don't know if I'm disturbing them too much, but how I'm supposed to feed them if I don't? That's bad.

 

Second update: day 20/10/16

Couldn't contain myself and I peeked my Pachycondyla ants, I placed a tape with the numbers 1, 2 and 3 so I know wich is wich. This time I won't have photos because I didn't want to disturb the ants too much.

Ant#1 and And#2 still outside the covered test tube, they didn't drink the drop of water with sugar that I placed and apparently didn't eat the insects that I placed. I placed some termites for the 3 ants as I read that they are what these ant's eat in the wild.

Now the big news!!!! I THINK that Ant#3 has an egg !!!!!! My first ant with eggs         Ant#3 is inside the covered test tube right next to the cotton that holds the water. She is facing a beige small think capsule shaped. I wanted to take a picture but it's very hard even to me to see inside there, and I need to use a flashlight to be able to see inside because it's very dark in there.

Edited by JPSMedeiros, June 4 2017 - 2:04 PM.

[AntsBrazil]

3th update:

Today I peeked again, after a quite long time. I got some mealworms and started a little colony:

 

 

I cut a mealworm in half for each queen, and placed inside the outworld. After about 5 minutes Ant#1 and Ant#3 already had taken the parts inside the test tube, while when I checked Ant#2 was holding it and went running to the test tube holding the mealworm.

 

Got some photos of Ant#2 with her eggs:

 

 

[T.C.]

Good Luck. Nice Queen

[AntsBrazil]

Thanks. Someone has a guess how long will take to the eggs to become workers?

Edited by JPSMedeiros, November 2 2016 - 1:00 PM.

[Leo]

mine never have success good luck

[AntsBrazil]

Quick update, the ant's are ok, all seem to still have only eggs. Made a video, the quality is bad but that's what my cellphone can do.

Tried feeding centipede and a piece of grape.

 

[NZAntKeeper]

How are they doing now?

[AntsBrazil]

Nothing different, more than a month already and they have just eggs, started giving them more food this week to see if that helps. 

[AntsBrazil]

Update 11-27-1

 

All 3 queens only have eggs after more than a month, something seems to be wrong, I'm planning a new setup for them, I'll test with one queen and if she seems to like it will make one for the others too.

 

She carries a bunch of eggs and leaves some others close to the cotton.

 

The photos are very bad in this setup, 1 layer of plastic from the container, 1 layer of glass from the tube and my old Galaxy S3 don't help me getting good photos, hopefully I'll buy a new cellphone this year.

 

 

 

[Canadian anter]

I wouldn't do that. Ponerines take especially long, ESPECIALLY in the founding stage. I have heard that it took 8 months for one guy to get his harpegnathos from 1 queen to her first worker. Changing the setup would just give her a lot of stress.

[AntsBrazil]

I'll try with just one to see how it goes. 

[AntsBrazil]

Update 12-04-16

 

One of them has at least 2 larvae. I fed to one a termite alate, to other 2 cricket legs and to the last one the cricket body. I was going to move one of them to one of my formicariums but I found a Neoponera marginata and I decided to move her to the formicarium instead.

[Saftron]

Awesome journal

[AntsBrazil]

Update 12-17-16

 

All the queens have larvae and this one have a pupae =D. I fed them some spider legs and a mealworm. Last week I fed one of them a cockroach and she killed it with just 1 sting, pretty impressive, the cockroach was almost 2x her size. 

 

[FSTP]

Very cool journal. I would really be interested in seeing a video of your queen taking down and stinging a feeder insect. 

[AntsBrazil]

I'll try to record one for the next update. 

[Leo]

cool

[AntsBrazil]

Update 12-27-16

 

All the queens have pupae, there's one with 4 pupae and I see no larvae and eggs. One with 1 pupae and about 5 larvae, and the last one with one pupae and one larvae. It seems to be a very small amount of brood, and no eggs means that it will take another 3 or more months until new workers if she lays now. I'll start giving the queens more food. Also found out that the queens are Pachycondyla Striata.

 

As requested, a video of the queen killing a mealworm:

 

 

Edited by JPSMedeiros, December 27 2016 - 2:01 PM.

[AntsBrazil]

Update 01-14-17

 

The first worker eclosed this week, It's hard to get photos of the test tube but the queen and the worker started foraging so I managed to get both in one picture. All the queens lost some cocoons, probably due to me not giving enough food. One of the queens lost all the cocoons and larvae, and now have only some eggs, also all the queens have new eggs.

It takes a lot of time for them to grow, I'm thinking about keeping only one colony of them, since I already have a lot of ants.

 

[Leo]

nice looking