I haven't been active on here for a hot minute, but I though I should start being active in more communities and have decided to start with this journal.
Recently, on 7/24/21 at 9:45 AM, after some large rains, I went out into my yard and looked if I could find any morning fliers (I had slept through my alarm I had set for 4:45 AM), I found two Acromyrmex versicolor queens (not what this journal is about, though) and one Trachymyrmex desertorum queen. Surprisingly, these were the only three queens I had found that morning.
A Trachymyrmex desertorum queen.
I put them into fungus grower setups and the Trachymyrmex regurgitated it's fungus pellet the next day. I gave it rose petals and a mesquite leaf, it liked the rose petal but not the mesquite leaf as much. Recently I gave it an outworld (just an extra fungus grower setup I had that was dry) and it's been using it a lot, I've put oats (steel cut and rolled, it seems to prefer steel cut), mesquite leaves, ironwood leaves and rose petals into it, it seems to like steel cut oats the best. Here's a series of photos from over the course of the past few days (and hopefully into the future): https://imgur.com/a/E3nQB0S
Since it's bloomed the queen has been foraging a lot more and has been putting a lot more food on the fungus, it's also laid a few eggs. I'm hopeful for this queen and I hope she makes it. Trachymyrmex desertorum seems like a cool species, and in general Trachymyrmex is a cool genus that I never realized I wanted.
I think that's all the context needed. I'll give updates whenever something interesting happens, or whenever I feel like it. I'll try to add photos of the fungus on that imgur post daily, or at least as often as possible.
Edited by Froggy, July 30 2021 - 3:04 PM.
