471 replies to this topic

[Alza]

that workers a bit smaller then i expected 

[Gregory2455]

Nanatics, if in a polymorphic species, are almost always of the smallest caste. The majors of this species that I saw in the desert were almost the size of the queen.

[caswal]

Congrats!

[dspdrew]

Update 9-22-2014

 

The original colony is now up to three workers, and doing well. The other five are still doing well also.

 

Yesterday I setup six more containers with donated fungus from all six existing colonies. I also kept a small piece of the fungus in a test tube to see how long it can last without being tended to by the ants.

[Gregory2455]

How long did it last?

[dspdrew]

Update 9-25-2014

 

Right away, the fungus in four of the new setups just died. I'm not sure if they were in too low of humidity for too long as I was gathering small pieces from each existing setup. The fungus in one of the new setups was clearly alive and growing, and another looks like it might be okay, I'm just not sure still. I took a larger piece of fungus from one of the existing healthy fungus gardens and gave it to one of the failed setups. So, at this point I have eight, possibly nine good setups going. From now on, I think I will add new setups one at a time, not adding the next, until I see that the last one was successful.

 

Yesterday morning, I watched one of the new queens rotate and lick a piece of sunflower petal for about 20 minutes while periodically adding secretions to it. At one point it started to place it on the fungus, but then after adding a large amount of fluid to it, continued rotating and licking on it some more. I wasn't able to stay and see how long before she finally added it to the fungus, but when I got home later that day, it was added.

 

The small piece of fungus in the test tube lasted a little over two days, before withering away.

[Alza]

that description ...

[dspdrew]

Update 9-28-2014
 
The three good setups I created last week are still doing well. I was a little unsure about one, but that one now is probably doing better than the other two. Over the last few days, the queen has slowly gotten all the fungus stuck up on the top of the test tube where she likes it. I noticed two of these new three have been adding the sunflower petals to their fungus a lot lately, and even noticed one of them had a pile of them along with some poppy seeds just inside the entrance of her test tube.
 
One of the first colonies I created with donated fungus from the original now has a worker.
 
The larger original colony has three workers and four pupae that should be eclosing soon. I can also see that the queen has recently laid about 15 more eggs.
 

 

 

 
 
One of the workers carries a piece of cereal over to place it on the fungus.
 

 
 
I noticed something interesting while looking closely at all the fungus gardens. One of them the queen has built right up against the wet cotton, and the whole section of it closest to the cotton and even touching in some spots is much more fuzzy and white. The fuzz is a lot longer in this spot also. So what I have heard about the fungus requiring very high amounts of humidity (99% some say), must obviously be true. I'm going to think about ways that I can maybe raise the humidity inside the test tubes to see if this will help the fungus gardens grow much faster.
 
You can watch my largest colony live any time 24/7 here (http://forum.formicu...e-video-streams).

[Gregory2455]

Antcam!

[DesertAntz]

This species looks so rewarding to raise. 

[dspdrew]

It feels like quite an accomplishment to do it.

[Gregory2455]

Not only that but he was also able to help me kick-start my queens too!

[dspdrew]

Hard to believe it all came from this.

 

[Gregory2455]

That single pellet gives all this! Did it all just come from one pellet?! I thought you had a lot that had their pellets.

[dspdrew]

I did, but they all died except one.

[Gregory2455]

Oh my...

[dspdrew]

Update 10-9-2014
 
The original colony is still doing great. Right now they have 7 workers, with another 15 on the way that I can see. They have been very interested in the sunflower petals more than anything lately.
 
Here's a video of them I took yesterday.
 

 
The latest three new colonies I created before the last update are all doing fine still. I have since created three more putting the total colonies at 12 now. Two of the latest three failed, but after swapping out queens and adding more fungus, they seem to be doing fine now. The colony that had recently gotten a worker before the last update now has two.
 
There have been a few deaths, mainly in the test tubes, but a couple queens in the setups I created have died also. Those I just replaced with some of the extra queens. Today while replacing a deceased queen in one of the two latest setups I created, I noticed one of the reject queens housed in the test tubes had a small piece of fungus starting to grow. I'm not really even sure how it got in there, but that's pretty cool. There was no substrate in there for the queen to add to it so it probably hadn't been growing much. I just stuck some substrate in there and sealed the test tube off a little more to raise the humidity. It will be interesting to see if she ends up with a healthy fungus garden from this.
 
While removing the dried up withered piece that was fungus from one of the latest failed setups, I decided to place it in a test tube and stand it up vertically so the dried up dead fungus is actually sitting on the wet cotton. I then stuck a rubber stopper in the tube to raise the humidity to 100 percent. After a day went by, the fungus started coming back to life. It has now been two days, and the fungus is white and fuzzy and very healthy looking again. I am going to leave this in that tube alone and see exactly how long it will survive without any ants tending to it. I'm assuming it will live fine until it has consumed all of the substrate. At that point it would need more substrate fertilized by the ants. I'll have the results of this experiment on my next update.
 
This is the resurrected fungus after two days of sitting on wet cotton in a very humid test tube.
 

 
 
The ants like to pile up the substrate in front of the test tube entrance. Sometimes they even close it off completely.
 

[Gregory2455]

Hmm, I will definitely need to push my new fungus up to the wet cotton, as the queens always just place it midway in the test tube. 

[Gregory2455]

Why do the males of this species look so weird? Oh yeah, because they have mandibles.

[dspdrew]

Update 10-22-2014
 
The original colony is still doing well and is now up to 10 workers, with many more on the way. They are still mostly interested in the sunflower petals, but have recently fertilized their fungus with a few pieces of some Apple & Cinnamon Chex cereal I gave them. They've been keeping their test tube closed off most of the time by piling substrate in front of the entrance, and only opening it for a little while every once and a while to come out and forage. One thing about these ants is they're always busy. I rarely see them just sitting; they're almost always doing something.

 

As for the other 11 colonies, three of them have workers, one with four, one with two, and one with just one. All but three of the 11 have larvae and/or pupae. One of the latest colonies I put together, has failed for the third or fourth time now, so I moved the queen to a test tube, and replaced her with the last remaining queen currently living in a test tube only.

 

The fungus I was keeping in the test tube by itself as an experiment finally started to die after a week and a half. This fungus is actually what I gave the queen I replaced the last failure with. So far it doesn't look a whole lot better than it did when I gave it to her, but it's only been a few days, so we'll see.