5 replies to this topic

[BleepingBleepers]

I hear it happens in ant colonies but how often is it?

 

It's for my Camponotus CA02 colonies. Since I've gotten them late June, I don't think I've witnessed it before. Either it happens and I don't see it (sometimes during the late night) or I just have more larvae now and therefore see it more often or something more serious?

 

In the last month or so, for the first time, I noticed it 5 times. 1 of those times it was during the stage in which the larvae was spinning the cocoon but stopped for unknown reasons for several hours. The other times were pupae half way into their development, they look like ants but very white, I'm guessing about a week, maybe two into their development cycle, they didn't seem to react so they might be dead. The ants just start eating into the cocoon and then eating the pupa. Edit: The temperature is about the same too, 76 - 78.5 F, water tower near max, water on piece of paper towel in the outworld to drink. Pretty much the same setup for all these months. I have added a second outworld, but don't see that being the issue, mature ants seem perfectly fine.

 

The brood still seems to be developing normally, other than this issue.

 

Just wondering why now and so many. I don't recall changing anything in their diet, they have fat gasters, a lot of protein over other day (normal feeder insects I've always been feeding) and same thing for sugar water that I mix myself. I have up the humidity a bit for the last week or so, enough to see more condensation.

 

 

 

Journal in signature if you want to know more about the colony if that'll help with troubleshooting the issue.

 

Thanks beforehand.

Edited by BleepingBleepers, November 18 2023 - 5:02 PM.

[100lols]

Hey! So, from my research it seems normal for ants to trash pupae during development for various reasons such as: disease prevention, genetic defects, maybe some kind of environmental stress, overpopulation(not likely), or sometimes just too many nest disturbances for some people. I think it helps make sure the colony's overall health is optimum?

Just some of my thoughts/reading I’ve done…

[BleepingBleepers]

Hey! So, from my research it seems normal for ants to trash pupae during development for various reasons such as: disease prevention, genetic defects, maybe some kind of environmental stress, overpopulation(not likely), or sometimes just too many nest disturbances for some people. I think it helps make sure the colony's overall health is optimum?

Just some of my thoughts/reading I’ve done…

Alright. Yeah, I'm reading some of that too, but at the same time, if it was for disease prevention or if the larva somehow was fed something that had pesticides / toxic item, I found it odd that they would choose to eat the larva since whatever disease or poison would spread to the ants that eat it, no?

 

Still new to keeping ants so finding out what's normal and abnormal. Interesting stuff.

 

But thanks for the reply

 

I updated my journal in thoughts of this, but I think after I did the heat cable (how it's attached to my formicarium to heat it), the heat distribution might've changed and the low end of formicarium became too cold and caused some few larvae to not develop well. Usually the ants would move them around but I'm guessing they're not perfect and some larvae were left out in the cold, literally.

 

That's my thought at least. I'm trying to keep them warm, but I'm right around the borderline of their cold threshold for brood development. Think it got 73-74 sometimes on the low end, especially during the cold night. My room's temperature fluctuates a lot, 68-75 cold season, the heating bill is ridiculous and I barely use it and it goes up 100 just to heat a small room bleh....

[OhNoNotAgain]

So my C. fragilis I observed eating their pupae come fall/winter, at least the first year or two.

They seemed to really enjoy the process of ripping apart their developing sisters and chowing down on the soft protein. I mean it was seriously YUCK. I know this is irrational human thinking, but I was honestly kind of repelled by my fraggles. It looked like some bizarre ant cult behavior. There was no reason for them to eat the pupae - they had plenty of food.

Come spring warmth (when I turned up their heat, that is), the behavior stopped and they grew their brood normally.

Since moving them to a Nucleus some years ago I honestly haven't been able to watch them very closely any more, but I should try.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, Yesterday, 8:06 AM.

[BleepingBleepers]

 

Yeah, I kinda felt a bit repulsed by the action myself and indeed, at first I thought it might be the lack of protein but they had fat gasters and I feed them often enough, at least it should be enough that they wouldn't have to resort to such drastic measures.

I also feel like it's the change in temperature, bit lower than usual even though I try to keep the heat up. They must also feel some kinda change in the seasons. In the last week, my carpenter's egg pile also went down and at first I thought they were signaling that they might indeed want a diapause as I wrote in my journal that I was going to look out for signs but today I noticed that the queen is back to her egg laying once again. The pile is growing and brood still developing.

 

I've made note of such changes in the timeline I posted in my journal here, increasing the amount of details as time passes.

 

COLONY DEVELOPMENT TIMELINE (click here)

 

I feel like the cold temperature and us unnaturally heating them during the colder months kinda causes a confusion in their psychological state.

Like a part of them is thinking "oh dang, it's the cold season, time to trim down brood and get ready" and "wait, it's still kinda warm though so maybe we should just keep supporting the brood's development??"

Even though it was brought up above how ants will sometimes do this to cull their brood and keep it healthy, I do find it odd that it's suddenly happening when the cold months came in and so often, hence my thoughts above.

I AM hoping that when Spring comes again, that it happen a lot less often. I'm still hoping to get my first MAJOR and watching them chomp down on some promising cocoons feels a bit backwards and counterproductive.

I've seen it happen probably 4-5 more times since I made this post. Thankfully, there's more good than bad and the brood is growing still, just not as fast as during the warmer seasons.

 

 

I'm also happy to say that my second ant species, the Ectos, seem like I was able to fix their pupae eating problems that also plagued them but for different reasons.

 

So all in all, enduring the cold months and hoping spring comes soon.

Edited by BleepingBleepers, Today, 1:32 AM.

[ANTdrew]

Myrmy’s Law is an inescapable part of ant keeping: all things being equal, ants will always do what you don’t want or expect them to do, like eating promising pupae.