8 replies to this topic

[Ozz]

 

Gday,

Since i like to view other peoples journals, I've decided to do my own for anyone interested. Mostly just pics.

Ants i will be posting about are:

Myrmecia Pilosula (stinging bullant) 

Camponotus Aeonopilosus (medium size with a bit of gold colouring)

Camponotus Intrepidus (big camponotus)

 

 

 

 

Myrmecia Pilosula

 

This has got to be my favourite, even though she is still on her own at the moment. These bullants are so aware of their surrounding, she doesnt fumble her way around like you see other ants relying on the antennas. She will spot me moving from a few feet away and watch me. And that look on her face.. 

I got her as a queen with no eggs. I put her into a home made formicarium i made with Hebel and perspex bought from the local hardware store. My understanding is that they need to find food whilst founding. (Semi claustral?) I also didn't want to get stung trying to feed her because its meant to be extremely painful. I feed her small crickets and she also has a 4:1 water sugar mix she has covered up yet. Unfortunately for the crickets, i let her catch them live. She covered honey straight up. She has a very big appetite for the crickets.

She seems to be comfortable in it because she layed her first egg less than a week later. 

4 days later she had 3 eggs.

4 days after that she had 11!

17 days after her 1st egg was layed, it changed to larva. Considering the other 10 eggs came 8 days later, i expect them all to start changing anytime soon. 

6 days since the larva, it is getting big, fast. Remaining eggs are....eggs still. 

 

That is where she is at now, i will have to add the other ants later. I didn't realise how long this takes 

 

 

She just happened to lay an egg right when i was checking her out.

 

 

[Ozz]

Camponotus Aeneopilosus

 

These are quite good ants to keep. They are reasonable size, very active and easy to please. They can become very animated when fed, usually they don't just tell a couple friends, the whole lot get stirred up, even the queen. She is quite active and doesn't mind moving around. The way they attack food, even a drop of honey is quite funny. 

Still a new colony, now with 20 workers and lots of brood. There are 2 different egg piles that must be easy 20+ eggs each. 

 

 This poor bugger held these up for over a day before they finally moved them.

 Eclosing ants come out looking as black as the mature ants.

 

[Ozz]

Camponotus Intrepidus

 

These are big ants without being bullants. The queen would be 20mm long if she straightened out a little, she also looks like a body builder. The workers are 10mm+.

Colony is at 7 workers with a reasonable bit of brood. She had no eggs for a while there, just larva and pupa but she layed a few eggs the other week, so at least she hasn't forgotten how.  

Like with the Myrmecia, being large ants, i don't expect the population growth that i have seen with pavement ants. 

 

 

These girls are covered completely in fine hair, head to toe

laying an egg

 

 

 

[Ozz]

Small Update.

 

Bit of drama with the Myrmecia... The eggs were all starting to change into larva, i counted 5 larva at one stage but i noticed 2 eggs missing. A day or so later there were no eggs and only 3 larva   She seems to be looking after them well, but my confidence has dropped. She seems to feed them mainly by putting them next to a cricket and they kind of curl around it a bit and eat it themselves. 

 

The Camponotus Intrepidus have all moved into the hebel section of the nest now. Previously the queen and 2 workers would hang up top in the test tube.

 

 

 

[CrazyLegs]

The first group of Myrmecia brood rarely all make it to adulthood. It's a larvae eat larvae world for the bull ants.

Nice colonies Ozz.

[Ozz]

I suspected maybe they were eaten by other larvae. There is one particularly big one I believe may be the culprit. Also it happened when I slowed down her food supply for a couple days..

[Ozz]

 

Hello,

 

Been a while since i last posted. Winter has past and there has been some bad news...and a little good

Start with the bad..

 

Myrmecia Pilosula is dead

She tried hard to get going but one day i found her dead in the outworld. I don't really know what actually killed her.

She got her larva so close to cocoon but didn't quite get the whole bury them in sand deal. You can see in the picture, one of them was even a naked pupa for a while till she ate it (i presume). The other couple disappeared a couple weeks later. She laid egg batches about 4 or 5 times after that but they never lasted more than a few weeks. I tried giving her more sand to work with but she moved it straight out.

That was as far as she got.

 

 

Camponotus Intrepidus are doing ok. I say ok because they havent done much at all really. They moved back into the test tube which worried me a bit and after about a month in there i decided to take the tube off and but it in another tank. there's still only about 15 workers at the moment but there has been 2 deaths (presumably the 1st workers). Moving didn't really help at all, they remain in the test tube most of the time and haven't been eating much at all. No protein food eaten for about a month. I'm a little concerned.

 

 

 

Camponotus Aeneopilosus on the other hand... They did not slow for winter at all. Numbers have exploded and i have no chance of counting. I had them sitting in front of my modem next to my computer so they did get some help with constant warmth the modem has. They absolutely trashed the original nest with garbage in half the chambers as there was no outworld connected. I did add a small outworld but by then it was too late. I made another formicarium out of hebel (thanks taheel ants for the inspiration) and they almost immediately started moving in. Before long, they had moved fully out of the old nest, so i disconnected it to clean it out and maybe re use. It wasnt long before they had filled the new formicarium as it wasnt really bigger, just not full of trash rooms, so i made another more "inner city apartment" style formicarium that i could add to give them some room to grow. It didn't take long before they started using it but thankfully this will take much longer to fill. Its 3 sided and 200mm tall...

If i was to guess their numbers and i could say is at least 300. 

 

ps. The soldiers look hilarious when they walk around with their big heads. They remind me of the bobble head toys

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have more pics ill add when i get the chance. 

Edited by Ozz, December 5 2017 - 3:24 AM.

[Hunter]

cool but for the "Myrmecia Pilosula (stinging bullant)" don't all bullants sting

[antaioli]

Loving the journal, keep it up!

Where did you get those plastic T joints for the tubing?