Thought I'd share some interesting things I experienced yesterday when I went anting for the first time.
The first thing I saw were these. Big paw prints. It spooked me a bit and I ended up looking around often the rest of the trip. Thought it was mountain lion at first but then you can see where the nails sunk into the ground and mountain lions don't walk around with their nails extended. But I'm not expert and I could've gotten eaten.
Found several nests of Pogonomyrmex rugosus in close proximity all with alates outside. I was scared they weren't going to fly today until I remembered Drew said they'd fly at around 10. Well they flew at 9:30 and his prediction was almost right on.
Now for the real point of this post. I'd like to share my first hand experience of a small ant taking out a larger prey. In this case, it was my Myrmecocsytus navajo. I caught my second M. navajo and put her into my container. On the drive home I realized I didn't take containers out of my pocket so as I took them out I saw a queen upside down and when I realized it was my M. navajo my heart dropped. I pulled over to see what happened.
There was one ant on its head! It was like David and Goliath. The smaller ant had killed my queen. She had bitten off the abdomen of the small ant but the jaws were still locked tight around her antennas. I took small scissors and cut off the jaws of the smaller ants.. I was scared she was a goner.
Moral of the story is make sure you don't pick up anything extra when collecting your queen!
You can see the rest of what happened in the video, I think it will be better than words. Thanks for reading!
Edited by Scrixx, July 11 2017 - 11:27 AM.
