A few weeks ago, our A. texana colony crashed hard. I suspect it was due to a lack of humidity and a changing of leadership that was unfamiliar with their captive care, leading the colony to lose their entire fungal garden and a sizable chunk of their population. As we all know, no fungus = no ants, and they can't spawn a fungus out of thin air if it doesn't exist. The colony appeared to be doomed, and most of us had given up on being able to resurrect them. I decided in a last ditch effort to take a quarter sized chunk of fungus from our thriving Acromyrmex octospinosus colony (Which just produced and released alates in captivity!) and introduce it to the Atta, in the hopes that maybe they'll adopt it and farm it. I had found a few papers saying that the two genera use similar species of fungi in their gardens, and I figured worst case scenario they just don't accept it and die off. This photo is of their new fungus chunk a day after I gave it to them:
As you can see, they already seemed to have accepted the fungus into their care and had begun constructing a honeycomb pattern out of it. This gave me high hopes, and in an effort to speed up their recovery I directly added torn up bramble leaves to their chamber alongside a few oats. Despite this species of ant being much more moisture loving than Acromyrmex, and using somewhat different proportions of food types as well, the fungus seems to be thriving and the ants are doing a wonderful job caring for it. This is a photo of the colony as of this morning, just one week after donating some fungus to them:
The queen is nicely visible on the lefthand size of the fungus, and seems quite healthy. I have not noticed any brood yet but I assume that is because any eggs won't have hatched yet. In about a month I assume I'll start seeing sizable brood levels, and I'll be waiting with bated breath to see how they develop over time.
I'm not sure if anyone else on this forum has tried to donate fungi from totally unrelated species before, but it has definitely seemed to be a successful endeavor and I'm thankful it saved the colony!
Edit: Shoot, I just realized the photos posted sideways. Sorry!
Edited by nickmbhi, June 10 2025 - 8:49 AM.
