61 replies to this topic

[drtrmiller]

Well... As you may have been able to tell by previous images/video, the larvae of these colony never seem to have food in them. Is this normal, or are they actually hungry? I have now seen these guys finally accept a bit of Aqua 300, and only the liquid. I know Crematogaster love sweets, but what should the protein source be?!

 

Aqua 300 is a fine protein source.  Springtails are also great for small ants, and produce little waste, as I've mentioned elsewhere.

[Gregory2455]

Yes, but as far as I see, the workers only drink the liquid and do not feed the larvae.

[drtrmiller]

Some species are weird—the Pheidole I had would eat Formula diets but the larvae never changed colors.  The larvae continued to develop, but I had no indication that the pigment in the food was being passed to the larvae.  

 

If the Aqua 300 yields an acceptable response, I would continue feeding it daily and keep notes on brood numbers and health.  Don't simply assume that because the ants weren't feeding larvae at the time you observed them, or because the larvae did not change color, that they were being neglected.

[Gregory2455]

Okay... Its not just the larvae. As you may have seen in the timelapse, the queen is crazy skinny. She looks starved almost.

[drtrmiller]

Okay... Its not just the larvae. As you may have seen in the timelapse, the queen is crazy skinny. She looks starved almost.

 

I don't necessarily agree with that observation.  She's naturally going to be skinnier than when she flew and mated.

 

Final instar larvae produce hormone secretions that are trollied by the workers to the queen, which stimulate her ovaries to produce more eggs. So she will remain "skinny" until she has an abundance of hundreds of brood and her ovaries are in full production.

[Gregory2455]

Update: 1/15/2015

This colony is doing well, they have brood of all sizes.

I do not know where they are getting the protein from though... I did see them eat Aqua 300 today though.

Sorry for the bad image, I was in a hurry.

[drtrmiller]

I'd be interested in knowing what endosymbionts may be involved in nutritional upgrading with Crematogaster spp..

 

You can learn about this highly studied phenomena in a few Camponotus-oriented research journals I host:

 

Heike Feldhaar: Nutritional upgrading for omnivorous carpenter ants by the endosymbiont Blochmannia. BMC Biology 2007, 5:48

 

Danival J de Souza: Blochmannia endosymbionts improve colony growth and immune defence in the ant Camponotus fellah. BMC Microbiology2009, 9:29

 

J. J. Wernegreen: Small genome of Candidatus Blochmannia, the bacterial endosymbiont of Camponotus, implies irreversible specialization to an intracellular lifestyle. Microbiology(2002),148, 2551–2556

[Gregory2455]

Update: 1/19/2015

The colony is doing good, the video does not show well the amount of brood that they have, but it is a lot!

[Jonathan21700]

Nice colony!

[Gregory2455]

Thank you!

[Tpro4]

Try fruit flies

[Gregory2455]

Try fruit flies

If you care to read through the journal before posting, you may know that I do/did feed fruit flies. I have like two videos of them feeding.

[Gregory2455]

Update: 3/17/2015

Multiple of the smallest of the workers have died, but I am not worried as I think these are just the first generation workers dying from old age by now. (I have not seen a single big, newer generation worker die.)

[Gregory2455]

Update: 6/21/2015

The colony is probably past 100 workers now. I am going to be making them a proper formicarium in the next few days. Can anyone describe how the chambers and tunnels of a Crematogaster colony look? I want to make the tunnels and chambers to fit their liking.

[Gregory2455]

Update: 9/3/2015

The colony from last year continues to just get bigger and bigger, despite all of the old nanitics dying.

I caught a few more of these in my pool last month and they too, now have workers.

[LC3]

Are the workers trying to remove the queen's wings?

[Gregory2455]

Yes.

[Roachant]

Everyone has a dream species to keep... These would be mine. I'm trying to find some around here but I'm not having much luck.
Nice journal!

[Gregory2455]

Everyone has a dream species to keep... These would be mine. I'm trying to find some around here but I'm not having much luck.
Nice journal!

Thanks! I am sure you could find some C.cerasi up there. They look a lot like these, just maybe grow a little slower.

[Gregory2455]

Update: 2/17/2016

I accidentally dried out my large colony of this species along with my Tetramorium colony.

They went from the queen, ~500 workers, and ~100 brood to the queen, 1 worker, and no brood. 

The queen and last worker seem to be okay by now, however. The queen has eaten and laid eggs since the disaster.