240 replies to this topic

[Ernteameise]

This morning, they were sitting less tightly packed, and I had a good view of the pile of brood they had amassed. So basically, the whole of the left chamber with the queen, the floor is carpeted with larvae.

 

 

Seconds after I took the picture, the ants had packed into the chamber again "protect the queen!" and I switched of the light and replaced the red cover that sits on the acrylic nest.

[Ernteameise]

It is weekend.

I like to take some time to provide to my animals and spoil them, so I prepared a feast for all my ants.

I cooked some chicken liver, since some members on this forum swear by it.

I cooked enough so I can freeze some and keep for later.

 

 

Food for all my colonies:

 

 

Not much change for my Messor barbarus since last week. But everybody is still alive and eating seed, so I assume they are fine.

 

 

I am also happy I finally could take a good picture of the Ant Bread! I read so much about it, and that this is THE thing Messors are about. I have seen them chewing and preparing it, but so far had no good chance of taking a good picture. It is always a group effort.

So here, right in the centre, the main food item for Messor ants- the famous freshly prepared Ant Bread (chewed up seed):

 

 

So I gave them a feast of different items in their food dish into the arena, and also sprinkled a few seed around so that they can go foraging.

 

 

Messors also have this weird obsession with sand. They like to use it as stepping stones? I am assuming here. But when a food item or the water tube is moist, they try to prevent their feet getting wet.

So they also got some sand inside the water tube in the arena on the cotton plug:

 

 

As for the food collection-

They are harvester ants.

So seeds appear to be ALWAYS the main attraction.

The seed sprinkled around the arena got immediate attention.

 

 

 

So far, not much interest in the other food items or the chicken liver.

 

Just right now, a noisy blowfly also flew through the open window, so I caught it, boiled it for a few seconds in boiling water (no idea where it had been!) and placed it VERY conspicuously near the tube leading to the acrylic nest.

The ants stopped, checked what the obstacle was, but no immediate interest.

 

 

EDIT: 30 mins later, and still no interest in neither blowfly nor liver.

At a guess, these girls are more the vegetarian ant bread type of animals.

 

Edit after 2 hours: Still no interest in the fly, I think the only way I could get interest would be by obstructing the tubing with the fly so the girls have to remove it.

In the end I gave the fly to the balcony ants (Lasius niger) and they at least appreciated the gift.

Edited by Ernteameise, May 20 2023 - 8:38 AM.

[Ernteameise]

The Messors are now famous!

They have just made it unto company social media.

I shared some pictures and a short report with the social media team of the company where I work (Diagnostic Laboratory).

And they took some of the cutest pictures of my Messor barbarus which I have.

I think it is important to carry the torch and spread awareness of how awesome these animals are.

 

[Ernteameise]

Evening-

finally, at least someone is showing some interest in the chicken liver.

I was about to lose hope.

 

[Ernteameise]

Observations I made yesterday:

This colony has some kind of weird activity spike in the middle of the night.

At 3 am in the morning I used a red torch to look at the colony (I was up because I needed the loo).

What do I see?

A whole swarm of ants in the pre-chamber (toilet) of the acrylic nest and in the tubing to the outworld.

Plus, several ants swarming the apple and liver pieces in the arena.

Several ants digging tunnels in the digfix of the arena nest.

The whole colony on the move and being industrious.

 

Check this out, the long straight tunnel to the right was done last night!

 

I had high hopes that there would be a move from the acrylic nest to the digfix nest!!!

But this morning, all was back to normal.

So this was this morning-  Nice picture of her majesty:

 

 

And there are some very nice big larvae in there:

 

 

Another observation:

during night time, they also seem to shift and shuffle their seed piles.

They get everything out, place it everywhere- it looks like chaos, but I assume there is some kind of system behind it.

And then they sort the seed.

I have previously made this observation, but with the whole colony out and about at 3 am, this really struck home.

 

So the seed pile is nice, sorted and organized this morning- I always am amazed that they have such OCD tendencies.

 

 

During the day, there are always workers sitting on and in the seed storage and I think they lick, them disinfect them and generally keep an eye on spoilage or potential thieves.

 

Honestly, I think this species is very interesting to observe.

Edited by Ernteameise, May 21 2023 - 1:41 AM.

[ANTdrew]

I wish I could keep them.

[Ernteameise]

And today when I was in town, I caved in and bought some superworms.

I am not going to keep them live, but freeze them and then take one out when I need it and shortly boil it for a few seconds to kill mites.

I right away prepared dinner for all of the girls and everyone got a piece. I also opened up the larva, to give easy access to the insides.

So far, however, no takers.

 

 

 

 

Edit:

After a couple of hours, we have some interest and I have even observed that some meat was delivered into the nest.

So I can add "superworm" to the list of "accepted, but not overly enthused" protein food items.

 

Edited by Ernteameise, May 22 2023 - 12:14 PM.

[Ernteameise]

Just some pictures of my Messor girls enjoying some chicken liver

 

 

They even like to share and masticate it into tiny bits

 

 

And these girls still have this weird obsession of storing the seed right next to the toilet. Maybe this is some kind of territorial marking? Staking a claim?

"Smell this? These seed are OURS."

 

[AntPerson76]

Messor is a species I would love to keep, but I live in a place where they aren't native. Your colony is cool!

[Ernteameise]

Messor is a species I would love to keep, but I live in a place where they aren't native. Your colony is cool!

They are also only native to a very tiny part of Germany where it is warmest, they are not native to my state.

But so far, there is no law against keeping exotic ants (as long as you do NOT release them, that is forbidden).

They are really cool, a fun, rewarding and easy species to keep.

[Ernteameise]

Here are a few more pictures of the colony this morning.

Being excited about my talk, I thought I take a few more pictures of my setup.

 

The setup in it's entirety- an acrylic nest connected to a digfix Antcube. They have dug tunnels in the digfix, but still prefer their cozy acrylic nest.

 

 

The colony does not yet fill out the acrylic nest. As you can see, the bottom left chambers are unused and I have not opened the gate yet for them to enter. I have read that if they have too much space in their nest, they will only stuff rubbish there, so until the colony grows a bit bigger, the gate will remain closed.

 

 

In the chamber to the right, this is the "bakery". This is where they masticate seed and produce the ant bread. You can see some pieces of the ant bread.

 

 

The left chamber is the chamber with the brood and the queen

 

[Ernteameise]

So I have haunted the Amazon page again and bought a couple of more ant books.

I finally caved in and got the European field guide for identifying ants.

The same book is sold in English for 30 Euro, and in German for 60 Euro (!!) for some weird reason.

The original of the book is French, so why the German translation is twice the price of the English one eludes me.

Needless to say, I bought the English version of the book.

It is an amazing book.

Crammed full of great pictures and of so many amazing ant facts and featuring so many amazing European species.

 

 

 

I immediately went to the Messor barbarus section, and there I learned what this weird behaviour is when they pile all their seed at the nest entrance.

See this journal above.

My colony just has this huge seed pile right at the entrance of the acrylic nest.

 

So apparently, this species does this after rains (maybe to dry out the seed?).

I can only guess that maybe the humidity in the acrylic nest maybe signals rain?

 

 

 

The other book I bought is an absolutely stunning book on army ants. The title is "Army Ants".

Gorgeous!!!

[ANTdrew]

More ant field guides like this need to be made for other regions. I own a very good for the ants of New England.

[AntPerson76]

What's it called?

Edited by AntPerson76, June 2 2023 - 3:44 AM.

[AntPerson76]

Is it, A Field Guide to The Ants of New England?

 

More ant field guides like this need to be made for other regions. I own a very good for the ants of New England.

[Ernteameise]

 

Is it, A Field Guide to The Ants of New England?

 

More ant field guides like this need to be made for other regions. I own a very good for the ants of New England.

 

Has to be, since there really are hardly any around. I imagine it is a lot of work to put together and hardly anyone feels compelled to do so.

[ANTdrew]

Is it, A Field Guide to The Ants of New England?

More ant field guides like this need to be made for other regions. I own a very good for the ants of New England.

Yes, that is the one.

[Ernteameise]

So I ended up opening the last gate to the acrylic nest after all.

They were squeezing into the brood chamber pretty tightly and there are some huge larvae in there, taking the space.

In the worst case, they would put another seed store in there.

 

This is what happened.

 

Some members of the colony rest and recuperate in the newly opened chambers and the colony is spread out more and is less tightly packed. Might be a sign that opening the gate was the right thing to do.

 

 

They also started a new grain store at the entrance with a selection of small seed

 

 

The larvae in the brood chamber now have room to breathe so to speak

 

 

And the queen is residing in the middle, on the hydration dome, and not in the brood chamber anymore.

 

 

In other news, I tried slightly boiled minced meat with these girls, and they completely ignored it- they like it as little as they like their superworms. Today, I try again with raw meat.

In comparison, the acorn ants enjoyed their minced meat, but these girls also eat bird poo in the wild, so they might be less choosy.

[Ernteameise]

Last night, I fed the girls some chicken and some crushed sunflower seed.

The result this morning was, that they had created basically what accounts for a carpet of chewed up chicken with a side of sunflower seed in the nest.

These girls are weird.

 

 

[Ernteameise]

The girls enjoy some cooked salmon. The watermelon next to it is completely ignored.