471 replies to this topic

[dspdrew]

Update 9-3-2018

The other day I found two dead queens out of the bunch, which is not too bad. For some reason after the reserve fungus got down to a pretty small size it suddenly looks healthier. I took a little more of it to give to a few queens whose fungus was completely dead or gone. I looked at a few of them under my microscope and saw they had a few eggs and one had a small larva. I know there is usually a lot more brood than you can easily see, because it's often hidden in the fungus. I set a few more queens up in formicariums. I don't want to use all the formicariums I have in case someone wants to buy one.

 

So far two of the fungus pieces that originally had the wild-caught workers added to them have died off. The other two (which I removed the workers from and gave to new queens) are doing well. One is relatively large so I'm surprised the queen is able to keep up with it, but she has plenty new substrate stuck all over it.

 

Today I checked and found one more dead queen, and two that let their fungus die, which I suspect were the same two from before. I gave them each a little more fungus and marked them this time. I usually swap them out when this happens, but I don't have any queens on reserve. If they let their fungus die again, I'm not giving them anymore. The queens will just go back in test tubes and be put in the reject pile for when the next queen dies... that is, if I don't just feel it would be more worth while giving the fungus back to the reserve fungus workers.

 

All in all, they are doing really well so far. Right now I have 25 queens in test tubes inside containers, and 34 in formicariums.

[dspdrew]

Update 9-24-2018

I've lost about 11 queens since the last update. Right now I have 16 in test tubes and 32 in formicariums. I'll probably move a few more into the vacant formicariums when I get a chance.
 
About half of all of them have fungus that is slowly growing, while the rest are either not growing or shrinking. About half of them have visible brood as well. There's about 10 or so that seem to be doing fairly well. A lot of them have pupae now, and one queen even got her first worker yesterday.
 

 

[charliebynar]

Update 5-28-2015

All five colonies are doing great. Two of them have around 100 workers, and 100 or so brood. The third largest has about 40 workers with 50 or so brood, and the other two have about 20 workers and 15 brood.

The largest two are going to need larger formicariums very soon at the rate they're growing. One of them has workers crawling all over the sides and the top of the foraging container all the time now, so I think they're already in need of something larger.

Here's some of the latest pictures of my two largest colonies and a little video I made.





















https://www.youtube....h?v=-QmPTHhlg-g

'Game over man, game over'
Aliens reference
I would love to capture one of these

Update 5-28-2015

All five colonies are doing great. Two of them have around 100 workers, and 100 or so brood. The third largest has about 40 workers with 50 or so brood, and the other two have about 20 workers and 15 brood.

The largest two are going to need larger formicariums very soon at the rate they're growing. One of them has workers crawling all over the sides and the top of the foraging container all the time now, so I think they're already in need of something larger.

Here's some of the latest pictures of my two largest colonies and a little video I made.




















https://www.youtube....h?v=-QmPTHhlg-g

'Game over man, game over'
Aliens reference
I would love to capture one of these

[charliebynar]

Drew, OMG! Civil Wars and the trial and tribulations of the Acromyrmex versicolor colonies! Great journaling... so much great info! Thanks! I just collected about 30 queens and placed them in test tubes 2 days ago...hopefully I will have some with some fungus! You said that the hydrostone had issues and that you changed it to ceramic and then changed it again...what did you use in the end for the floor? Do you still have any of these girls? Great job and thanks a million for sharing all that you have learned! 😆

[Zeiss]

Drew, OMG! Civil Wars and the trial and tribulations of the Acromyrmex versicolor colonies! Great journaling... so much great info! Thanks! I just collected about 30 queens and placed them in test tubes 2 days ago...hopefully I will have some with some fungus! You said that the hydrostone had issues and that you changed it to ceramic and then changed it again...what did you use in the end for the floor? Do you still have any of these girls? Great job and thanks a million for sharing all that you have learned!

Be very careful with test tubes.  They can get their fungus tangled up in the cotton and it will die.  Also, how did you collect them?  Where they still digging?

[dspdrew]

Drew, OMG! Civil Wars and the trial and tribulations of the Acromyrmex versicolor colonies! Great journaling... so much great info! Thanks! I just collected about 30 queens and placed them in test tubes 2 days ago...hopefully I will have some with some fungus! You said that the hydrostone had issues and that you changed it to ceramic and then changed it again...what did you use in the end for the floor? Do you still have any of these girls? Great job and thanks a million for sharing all that you have learned!

 

Hopefully you collected them while they were still digging, otherwise they're probably no longer carrying their fungus pellet.

[Zeiss]

Drew, are you able to put in what the Myrmecologist (?) told you in response to our questions?

[dspdrew]

Update 10-6-2018
 
I'm going to start with the current colonies. They have been doing fairly well, without too many deaths. Most of them are not growing their fungus very fast. There are a few that are really growing theirs well. I counted six colonies with workers now, although I think I might have missed one or two with workers tucked away in the fungus. The largest looked like it had about five workers.
 
Now on to my new queens. A good sized storm went through the area just south of Joshua Tree National Park, Sunday September 30th, 2018. Based on others' observations, it appears they flew the next morning and the morning after that as well. I drove out Tuesday night and collected a whole bunch of them while they were digging their nests, so I assumed they would probably still have their fungus. This time I made sure to hydrate each one of their collection containers so they wouldn't die on the way home, or over night if I was too tired to tube them up after getting home. The hydration worked; there were no deaths.
 
I used a few of them to replace a dead queen and a few duds. I also decided to use the rest of the formicariums I had recently made to sell. I put 15 of them in formicariums, and the rest I put in test tubes.
 
A couple days later, I found two of them with fungus pellets and moved those into formicariums.
 
Here's some closeup shots of the fungus pellets.
 

 

 
 
This one was already starting to sprout.
 

 
 
Unfortunately I can't seem to find those fungus pellets now, and I haven't found any others either. I'll probably just have to try to start a few new colonies with however much fungus some of my current colonies can spare.

[dspdrew]

I recently spoke to Dr. Rebecca Clark and got to ask her a few questions about Acromyrmex versicolor that I and a few others had.

Q:  Is Leucoagaricus gongylophorus the same species of fungus that Atta and Trachymyrmex farm? (Somehow the first letter disappeared when I typed Leucoagaricus)

A:  I think this is probably a mis-transcription of "Leucoagaricus," which has been used interchangeably with "Leucocoprinus" for the leafcutter fungus, and yes, has been the name used to describe the fungus species grown by Atta, Acromyrmex, and some Trachymyrmex. The most recent paper written on the topic just came out this year, but I'm not completely up-to-date on the latest and greatest.


Q:  At what point does the queen typically drop her fungus pellet?
 
A:  Within the first 3 to 4 days after she has started her new nest. In the lab they seem to be willing to drop the fungus overnight after collection.


Q:  Do you happen to know the average lifespan of an Acromyrmex queen/colony in the wild?

A:  This is a tricky one! I think we're up to around 12 years for lab-reared colonies, but I don't think anyone has tracked them in the wild in a way that would make it possible to estimate age.


Q:  Sometimes I noticed lots of deaths along their foraging trails at night. Have you ever seen that?

A:  I haven't seen this, but it sounds intriguing!


Q:  As hardy as these ants seem to be, I have had a lot of queens die in collection containers at rates far beyond that of any other ants I collect. I'm pretty sure now that it was the lack of moisture. Are they very sensitive to desiccation, more so than other ants?

A:  This is another one I'm not sure about. The person I know who has studied this, Bob Johnson, has mostly focused on desert seed-harvester ant species, and I would expect the seed-harvesters to be more desiccation-tolerant than the leafcutter queens. It may partially depend on when the queens were collected, because if they've been collected after they have had time to dig, they may have experienced more abrasion of the cuticle, which makes them more susceptible to diseases and to desiccation.


Q:  Are there certain levels of any gases that are often found within nests? Have they tested that?

A:  This hasn't been tested for A. versicolor specifically. In the past people have been interested in carbon dioxide and oxygen levels in tropical fungus ant nests, but I don't think anyone has managed to pursue those questions in desert species.


Q:  What do Acromyrmex tend to collect more for their fungus, fresh or dry/dead substrate. Anything other than plant matter?

A:  Definitely flower petals in addition to leaves. Another grad student in Arizona has been monitoring what they collect year-round, and I think he's seen them collect a mixture of fresh and dried materials - mostly things like palo verde leaves, palo verde flowers, mesquite flowers, sometimes creosote flowers. In the lab they loved Mexican Bird of Paradise flowers. But another colleague who has dug up nests has noted that A. versicolor tend to have chambers towards the top of their nests where they store dried materials. This might be a reserve pile to cope with variability in what's available.


Q: What is the typical dept of an Acromyrmex versicolor fungus garden? I always guessed maybe 10 feet.

A: They can actually be that deep, if not deeper - I haven't been involved in digging up many nests, but a biologist in Texas has, and I know they've dug down at least 8 feet without reaching chambers in at least one case. My thinking is that they probably dig down to a depth where the soil temperature and moisture are stable - close to the water table if the water table's near the surface. But on the other hand, I did dig up an unusual but young colony once that was only about 1.5 feet down.

[charliebynar]

That is the same storm that went through Wickenburg, AZ where I collected my queens. I collected them on Friday and have left them in test tubes. I will check them today to see if there are any fungus pellets. Crossing fingers. I also picked up a couple of very large queens with red heads and black bodies..any idea what species they might be? I will see if I can get some pictures.

[charliebynar]

I checked in on the queens and I see some eggs here and there, not on any fungus pellets though. I take it that they would lay their eggs near or on the fungus pellets if they had them? How long does it take for the fungus pellets to sprout? A few days? 

[dspdrew]

Yes, a lot of the time they seem to lay their eggs right alongside the fungus pellet.

 

I'll bet the other queens you collected were the same Myrmecocystus queens we collected. I think they might be M. mendax, but I'm not sure. They seem to fly pretty late in the year. I usually find them the same time I find Acromyrmex.

[Leo]

I have that nasty yellow mold over all my seeds, dead ants and substrate. 

[Kalidas]

Wow this seems like a very difficult species to care for. Their very restrictive diet makes it where you have to care for not just ants but the fungus too.I was considering trying to go out and catch some Queens myself but this all sounds really difficult.

But man hats off to you for trying. They seem like one of the coolest if not the coolest ant species. I mean who doesn't want a colony that farms and cultivates their own food!

Edited by Kalidas, October 7 2018 - 8:00 PM.

[charliebynar]

Bummer, I think none of my leaf cutters have their fungus pellets. 

[nurbs]

That is the same storm that went through Wickenburg, AZ where I collected my queens. I collected them on Friday and have left them in test tubes. I will check them today to see if there are any fungus pellets. Crossing fingers. I also picked up a couple of very large queens with red heads and black bodies..any idea what species they might be? I will see if I can get some pictures.

 

Yeah, agree with Drew. Guess would be M. mendax of M. placodops, similar to what we found the other night along with the Acromyrmex. They are beautiful.

 

Also, great question and answers with Rebecca Clark.

[dspdrew]

Update 10-22-2018
 

Last Friday, October 12th, we had a crazy storm system blow through, hitting the coastal cities as well as the desert this time. Most of the area along the 10 freeway from Cactus City (calling a rest stop a city is pretty funny) all the way to Blythe received at least an inch of rain, with some spots getting around 3 inches. To my surprise Acromyrmex versicolor had another small mating flight the following Sunday near the entrance of Joshua Tree National Park, after already having at least 2 the last time it rained there.

 

I ended up catching a major Acromyrmex flight in Desert Center that Sunday around 11:00 AM.

 

Here's some video of brand new queens all helping out to dig a nest under one of the Ironwood trees out there.

 

 

 

I ended up binging home enough queens to try raising some colonies from their own fungus pellets again. I put 15 of them in formicariums, and left the rest in test tubes.

 

Two days later, I found six of those queens with their fungus pellets stuck to the side of the plastic. A few days later I checked on them, and could only find a couple of them with visible pellets. Now I can't find any fungus pellets anywhere, in the test tubes or formicariums.

 

I can safely say that raising them from scratch is not easy at all. I can see now how lucky I got my first time.

 

Some of the current colonies are doing really well still, so I'll be taking some of their fungus and getting a bunch more colonies going soon.

Edited by dspdrew, February 21 2019 - 8:49 PM.

[Kalidas]

Aww man sorry to hear that. Yeah they sure can be pains, glad to hear the other colonies are still doing good

[Kaelwizard]

Are Atta any easier? Not that I'll ever be able to get any but I would like to know. Also I think I personally like Atta better.

[Kaelwizard]

Eventually I want to live in Colorado which is touching Texas where there are Atta sp. Do you think I could find them in Colorado? (I know they would be invasive but I still would like to keep them).