2 replies to this topic

[Andrewslatter]

A kind amazing and funny thing happened to my colony today.
So I was at the state park and an unfortunate fly made the mistake of getting caught inside my car. I keep a container in my car for such reason and I trapped it and took it home to my ants “tetramorium”. Normally I don’t feed them flys cause of the chance of it getting into poison or chemical stuff but since I was in the wild I felt confident it was untainted.
When I got home I put the fly in freezer to slow it down a bit afterwards I placed it in the outworld of my formicarium. Quickly the ants started grabbing legs of the fly to anchor it down however at that moment the fly came too and started to take flight with a small group of ants holding on for the ride of their lives.
The fly flew rather slow and low due to the fact there was a small group of ants that were clinging to its legs. I was quickly able to grab out of the air and place it back in the outworld and held it down for a moment to allow the ants to gather more recruits. It was amazing the battle as the fly struggled several times to take flight but my ants had it anchored firmly.
Only thing that I was bummed about that it happened so fast I was unable to video or photo the flight…
My ants are amazing and beings how they are all female hunters and they took flight with a little help from a fly that’s why I titled this Valkyrie Hunters

[IdioticMouse26]

Nice story! It's really cool to watch ants hunt for food. Watching them work together is so fascinating. 

Just one thing: Feeding wild flies(even if they were caught in forests) can be dangerous because they can contain parasites/mites/germs that could potentially harm the colony. So I recommend you disinfect them using boiling water/freezing/alchol.

[OwlThatLikesAnts]

I normally don’t feed ants live insects but when you have an aggressive species like your Tetramorium immigrans or a species like my Myrmica ruba. It’s always fun to watch them hunt.