23 replies to this topic

[Gregory2455]

Creepy is right. That is the best word to sum it up.

[123LordOfAnts123]

A more plausible explanation would be that the queen simply expired and the bacteria, being opportunistic, jumped to the next best food source - a decomposing ant.

 

I've dealt with what may or may not be the same species of creature, where it's contaminated the water of a few of my test tubes a couple times. I've even had a few guests ask out of curiosity why I was using pink food coloring in such circumstances. It seems tube colonies with substantial amounts of workers are able keep the stuff at bay, possibly through the use of natural chemicals. I've had more problems with an unsightly, though seeming harmless, black mold or bacteria which tends to turn the entire cotton plug a dark blue-ish grey.

[Gregory2455]

A more plausible explanation would be that the queen simply expired and the bacteria, being opportunistic, jumped to the next best food source - a decomposing ant.

This was my idea too. I did not mean to make it look like I said that the bacteria killed her.

[dspdrew]

Yeah, I think the majority of the time you see fungus or something all over a dead ant, it wasn't the fungus that killed them, but instead just started growing on them because they were a good source of nutrients and could no longer fight back.