173 replies to this topic

[DaveJay]

Strange, I wonder why they did that, or maybe it was good place to dump dirt while they were digging

It was a bit strange, the plants were washed before and after being added to the enclosure so unlikely that it was like them covering food. I've watched videos of Campontotus in the wild and they never leave piles of dirt or anything else that might give them away near the entrances to their nests so maybe that was their attempt at spreading the debris to avoid detection.

The noveboracensis here have the neatest trails covered in leaf/needle litter. They're visible if you know what to look for and you can see them moving through little open parts here and there. They have trail tunnels like that all the way from their nest tree (a cedar I think) to the taller pine. A few more trails are around that area too, just neat to see the big majors walking through them. But if they know you're watching, they start to cover over the open spots with more dirt. Such characters and so visible with workers roaming the whole property to find something interesting.

There is a book on the Camponotus of Australia that's available from a museum website as a free pdf that mentions and shows Camponotus making tunnels just underneath the surface of the sand that lead from the tree or the soil under the tree they live in to areas they forage in. That way the "entrance" is metres away from the actual nest. They must glue the sand/dirt somehow as the tunnel shows as a ridge on flat ground. It's amazing what ants can get up to!

[DaveJay]

I checked on the R. metallica today, there's much more brood than the other day. The winged ant was also in one of the brood chambers. I still don't know if she's the Queen, or if the brood has just been consolidated so I can see more of it, but it seems promising, I'm taking it as a good sign!

[DaveJay]

The Camponotus aeneopilosus have started digging, I think because the formicarium is starting to dry out now. Strangely they have dug horizontally before beginning to dig vertically. These pictures are a few days old, they have a vertical shaft in the middle of the front panel now. It was a slow start with only one worker digging the horizontal tunnel by herself for days, the others only joined her once she'd made a pretty good start on her own. I've noticed the workers are much more jumpy now, usually when I pick up the tube to get to the food dish they sit inside, lately they are going into "we're under attack" mode.

[DaveJay]

Another update with not much to report.

Camponotus aeneopilosus 

Camponotus sp. "Cairns". Since the scout drowned I haven't seen any movement at all, their tube is blocked.

Camponotus consobrinus colony 2 have dragged half a mealworm up onto the plant.

The Queen is still out, she has been since I got back from holidays. Obviously she has been feeding herself as her gaster has swollen quite a lot since she left the nest. In these pictures she has the larvae in the corner, then she spent some time looking down into the nest, later the larger larvae were gone, taken back into the nest by workers.

You can see the pink in the larvae where they've obviously been fed sugar water. Perhaps because the mealworms and dog food have been rejected lately they aren't getting enough protein, I might feed bloodworms again, they liked them when I first got them. I also bought some "broth" style fancy cat food today and some gravy style so I'll see how that goes down.

 

This pic is some of Colony 1s' larvae, you can see the pink in them too.

 

Today I saw 2 Rhytidoponera metallica workers carrying dead ants around, I hope nothing is going on. I moved them from the bedroom into the loungeroom last week, hopefully the temperature swings aren't messing with them.

 

Something else I saw today was a really small R. metallica, perhaps one of the original nanitics that I hadn't noticed before? Could be one that eclosed recently too, in the wild I didn't see any ants forage at all, not in 5 days, they were just huddled in two small chambers yet they had brood.

 

Edited by DaveJay, September 15 2018 - 4:51 AM.

[DaveJay]

I fed them all the broth catfood a couple of days ago, the liquid is gone, I think more than evaporation would cause but I've only seen the R. metallica actually eating it.
Tonight I took some Grevillea flowers to bed and gave each Camponotus colony one. Great excitement in all but colony Cairns who I never see anyway.

[CoolColJ]

R.metallica are general scavengers so they will try most things

[DaveJay]

R.metallica are general scavengers so they will try most things

Yes. I've been giving them a wide range of food including seeds and nuts. I only ever see one or two at a time even though there are about 20 in the nest. I put a small live cricket in and still only one or two came out but when the cricket went into a tunnel entrance they were swarming it inside the tunnel with still only two "battling" it outside of the nest. 

 

22nd September

I looked around for queens today, we had some rain lately and finally a nice day so it seemed likely. At a friends place I saw an obvious queen on her path. I think likely an Iridomyrmex species but smaller than the last one I caught, I think the workers would be smaller than average Iridomyrmex.

In the backyard I found 3 female alates on the island in her birdbath, there were a couple on the garden surround too. The only way the ants could have got to that spot on the bird bath is if they swam or flew so despite having wings I caught the three just in case. They were on the birdbath 30 mins or so before I got my catching gear from the car and made no attempts to fly even though I had a bit of a job trying to catch them without hurting them because they were so tiny, only their shape gave away the fact that they weren't tiny flies or gnats, mosquitoes have bigger bodies than these.

I then went to the local hospital, I've been checking there often lately as there is a large tiled area in front of a new building adjacent to a large bare garden bed. I found nothing there today but I have seen it littered with wings and male alates in the past. In the rear carpark there was a lot of ant activity but mostly trails of the common small black ants.

I came across a lone Rhytidoponera ant, I know they forage singly but I couldn't spot any others at all in the area. On the off chance that I had stumbled upon a foraging queen or maybe a gamergate I collected her for closer examination at home. I see no wing scars in the pictures so it may have just been a foraging worker. I can easily let it go in the same place, I marked each spot that I collected an ant for just that reason.

 

 

I did collect some orange and black ants, a definite queen included and I found a single Jack Jumper (Myrmecia pilosula most likely) that I collected because I couldn't find a nest, there's not usually just one, they react to disturbances pretty dramatically if there's a nest nearby. Unfortunately no wing scars upon close inspection. It's almost 4.30am so that's a story for another day!

 

  

 

Edited by DaveJay, September 22 2018 - 10:55 AM.

[CoolColJ]

Black red ants are Melophorus

SA has by far the highest concentration of Melophorus, so you should find plenty of them when summer rolls around as they love heat and that's when they fly

Edited by CoolColJ, September 22 2018 - 2:08 PM.

[DaveJay]

Black red ants are Melophorus

SA has by far the highest concentration of Melophorus, so you should find plenty of them when summer rolls around as they love heat and that's when they fly

I had wondered if they fell out of the Gumtree where I found them, there was just a group surrounded by black ants. If they're Melophorus that theory might be likely. At first I noticed them milling about and saw a great difference in size, tiny, medium and large. I caught one of the largest but could see by the thorax that it was a major. They weren't going anywhere, there was no trail to be seen, they were just going in circles. They did find a hole and were going in there but just as their numbers on the ground got less I noticed a humped thorax on one so I caught that, looks like a queen to me! Why a queen would be out in the open milling around with the others I don't know unless they did fall from the tree. I then spotted a lone Jack Jumper, Myrmecia sp. so I caught that for closer inspection at home and looked for more. I checked over the whole stretch of "garden", bare dirt that had obviously been weed sprayed in the last week, but could find no nest. Me moving around that spot for 20 mins or so should have led to a bunch of Jack Jumpers attacking me but I found no sign of any others at all. I will go back to the spot later today even though it is overcast and cold again just to check further and perhaps capture some more Melophorus workers, when I went back to the spot 10 mins or so after catching the queen there weren't many there. I captured three minors and one major, but one minor was curled up in the catch "pipe" and died (or they finished it off) not long after adding to the enclosure and one seemed to just vanish into thin air so I now have a queen, 1 minor and one major. They didn't do much last night, they were huddled together when I woke at noon but when I put the light on the workers started inspecting the small starter tunnels I had made so hopefully they will settle in.

These pics show the difference in the ants, that's gotta be a queen right?

And just some random pics

 

 

[CoolColJ]

These are soil nesters so they can't be from a tree

 

Yeah that one is a queen.

Looks like my queen, but your minor workers are not dark/black like mine are.

They can be extremely polymorphic, even having different sized majors and minor workers, plus medial workers, along with different colour schemes within each caste.

But not all species are like this, it seems the larger species are mostly just plain minor and major workers

 

They might not function well with just a queen and a fraction of the colony's workers.

They are used to having more workers, then they might just die as a result

[DaveJay]

The Jack Jumper (Myrmecia pilosula most likely). Not a queen but it's still strange that I only found one. They do have gamergates that found colonies though so unless I see more in the area I'll just keep her, On a hospital grounds if a colony was found they would be exterminated so it could just be a sole survivor, I'll see how it goes, for now I'll just study her.

[DaveJay]

These are soil nesters so they can't be from a tree

 

Yeah that one is a queen.

Looks like my queen, but your minor workers are not dark/black like mine are.

They can be extremely polymorphic, even having different sized majors and minor workers, plus medial workers, along with different colour schemes within each caste.

But not all species are like this, it seems the larger species are mostly just plain minor and major workers

 

They might not function well with just a queen and a fraction of the colony's workers.

They are used to having more workers, then they might just die as a result

Yeah, that's why I'll try for more today, I'm kicking myself for not catching more when I bagged the queen. The minor just ignores the queen but the major seems to always be cleaning or feeding her. If I had a digging implement in the car I would have dug the colony up, I think they were being raided by the black ants, they were surrounded by them. I'll see what I find today.

Btw, I was thinking of Podomyrma for some reason, they nest in trees.

[DaveJay]

So I went back just now and dug up the rest of the Melophorus colony. I didn't find any brood but I dug carefully until the tunnel ran out and digging deeper and wider didn't yield any more ants. What I captured today was about the amount I saw yesterday, about 30 workers, maybe slightly less. This colony was surrounded by various other ant species, I imagine that a lot of founding chambers were established in the area in summer or autumn, it seemed like every hole had a different species, each hole also had just a modest amount of fresh dirt around it. Digging 1 or 2 inches sideways when digging up the Melophorus resulted in medium sized black ants emerging, the colonies were really packed in there! It seemed to me like a lot of the holes with fresh dirt weren't open yesterday afternoon.
Anyway, I'm now fairly certain now that I have the whole Melophorus colony, it seems like the whole nest was 1 chamber about 3 and a half inches below the surface, it would have been mud last week on top.

[DaveJay]

Now that the colony is reunited they are very busy digging a new home, there was no hesitation, they all got stuck in straight away. In half an hour they've dug more than an inch, I doubt it will be long before they have a decent nest.

[CoolColJ]

This Melophorus colony looks similar species to one of mine, you can see the colour and size variations

 

https://www.instagra.../p/BoFmJBggoyC/

Edited by CoolColJ, September 24 2018 - 2:29 PM.

[DaveJay]

This Melophorus colony looks similar species to one of mine, you can see the colour and size variations

https://www.instagra.../p/BoFmJBggoyC/

Very similar although yours seem to be darker on the head than on thorax whereas mine have very vividly red heads. They are very bright red on the thorax too. That could just be the pictures/screens though.

Edit-looking back at my pictures I think they are VERY similar although mine are the exact same shade on head and thorax whereas yours seem to have heads darker than their thorax.

I had been meaning to update on them.
After digging a new chamber they all piled in and closed the entrance and that's where they've stayed. I assume they'll probably wait for warmer weather. I've got them in the bedroom at around 19c but it would have been the warmth of the sun on the bare ground their shallow nest was in that woke them up the other day, that would have been far warmer.
There was something going on though, they were all milling around and the Queen had left the nest so I think maybe they were under attack by, or at least intimidated by, all the black ants around them.

Edited by DaveJay, September 26 2018 - 3:28 AM.

[DaveJay]

30th September

 

I haven't actually seen the Melophorus since they made their nest, being much smaller ants than the formicarium was made for they can nest without being seen. The entrance to the nest is opened and closed daily so they are active, just shy as I had read. They did deposit two majors and a minor in a corner but I knew there were some injuries from catching them, I knew one major and one minor had been injured for sure, no more bodies have appeared so I don't think there's anything too much wrong.

 

The Camponotus consobrinus colonies have not progressed much, still lots of fat grubs in the nests though.

 

The Camponotus aeneopilosus workers have stopped digging after excavating a decent sized nest and seem happy in the test tube, the brood is developing nicely, much bigger now.

 

The Camponotus sp. "Cairns" are also keeping quiet although another scout has been nominated so I at least see one now and then. Because they have just been living in a test tube blocked off with sand I nicked their tank for the Melophorus and put them in one with just a layer of sand and food dishes, I had wanted a more tropical theme for their formicarium anyway.

 

The Rhytidoponera metallica colony seem to be doing very well, they are focused on protein foods now whereas they used to ignore it for the most part. I assume this means they have larvae, the last I saw they had plenty of eggs.

I also saw one worker carrying the winged ant (dead) last night so I assume that was an alate not a winged queen.

 

[DaveJay]

The Jack Jumper ant, Myrmecia pilosula (likely) has been digging a lot and has a couple of chambers. I know she's not a queen but she does seem to be settling in. My blue sugar water mix seems to be a hit with the Myrmecia, I can see the blue sheen to her gaster.

I introduced her to a new friend!

Where are you going friend? 

Edited by DaveJay, September 30 2018 - 5:54 AM.

[DaveJay]

On the 27th September I received two new ants.

 

Firstly a Camponotus intrepidus queen although I had expected it to be bigger than the C. consobrinus queen and it seems the same. I got it from a guy that deals in scorpions and tarantulas mostly and he sent the ants in tubs of spaghnam moss instead of test tubes so I had no hope of knowing if they had laid eggs or not. The Camponotus has taken a while to calm down, I suspect perhaps she had laid at some stage. I put some electrical tape over the tube and I'm just giving her some peace atm.

[CoolColJ]

I don't think that is an Intrepidus. Looks more like a subspecies of C.suffusus
the red legged variety, Camponotus suffusus bendigensis
which seems smaller than the usual C.suffusus of 18mm

Intrepidus are around 2cm, and have a completely maroon thorax and head
Anyway workers will tell the story


https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/i3/24298958/TB2wKbPmxGYBuNjy0FnXXX5lpXa_!!24298958.jpg

Edited by CoolColJ, September 30 2018 - 6:33 AM.