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Felix's Lasius Fulignosa journal


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#1 Offline FelixTheAnter - Posted August 15 2021 - 1:16 AM

FelixTheAnter

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Lasius Fulignosa is a hyper-parasite - in nature, they are parasites of Lasius Umbratus, which itself is a parasite of Lasius Niger.

I collected about 30 L. Umbratus queens at the same time as this L. Fulignosa queen - but didn't have any Umbratus brood to give her. I read some people had success with L. Niger brood, so that is what I gave her. I started her off with a ton of pupae from my own L. Niger colony, along with a few callows. She took to them all right away.

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Approximately 2 weeks later, most of the pupae are now workers, and the queen had an egg stuck to her abdomen and maybe 4 or 5 more being tended to by workers.

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I was extremely surprised to look in her tube today, 6 days after the last photos, and see a huge number of eggs!

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Her gaster is so fat, too. Clearly the workers are doing great so far.

I have read some people have problems with L. Niger hosts killing off the first L. Fulignosa workers. I may start plucking the L. Niger from the outworld as soon as I see L. Fulignosa workers eclosing. If this still fails, I should have plenty of L. Umbratus brood to give her within a few weeks. Fingers crossed.
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#2 Offline Fatatoille - Posted August 15 2021 - 3:01 AM

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Love this species, fuliginosus get pretty large colony sizes so it will be cool to see how physogastic that queen will get.

Prawn and Mayo sandwiches taste nice.


#3 Offline FelixTheAnter - Posted August 15 2021 - 5:13 AM

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Thanks! I'm looking forward to it as well.




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