I've had this plant in the house for years and years that is from the Bahamas. It is really big, and so is the pot. Well yesterday, I was just looking at the pot for no particular reason, and my heart flipped at what I saw. There was a Tetramorium worker all alone inside of it! It got real nostalgic at one point because the last time I have seen a Tetramorium ant was in the fall, when the ants were still active here. I captured it. I did a little more scouring but there was no other ants in sight, so I suppose this marked the worker orphaned. Sometimes we put a little dirt from outside underneath the sandy substrate, so maybe this worker was captured with it. I put it in a test tube setup and gave it some Sunburst to make the rest of her life as happy as possible for the remainder of her life. I put her in my warm room, but I'm not sure if I should hibernate her or not. Would it really matter if I am not keeping a colony?
Soon afterwards, I curiously lifted up the new avocado seed and underneath it was some some sort of beetle larva! It looked like this:
I think these insects definitely came from the dirt, becuase Tetramorium is the most common ant in dirt near the house, as well as this beetle larva, which is pretty common in our gardens.
The worker is doing good. I think I'll keep it in a warm temperature. As for the larva, I released it. It's pretty cool to have an open- top ecosystem in our house. I am not sure what else could be burrowed into that pot, but when we get rid of that plant one day (which could be a while), I will inspect. Who knows, I could have this super-mega explosive leafcutter beetle breeding down there or something.
Edited by Nathant2131, February 5 2017 - 5:20 AM.
