lovethoseantyboys-blog

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

..

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

delivery

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

Ants have dark secrets, too. [@poorlydrawn]

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

ants are friends please remember that

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

You wouldn't happen to have a link to this study/experiment would you? Im very interested!

whats the "im not dead yet" experiment?

Scientists wanted to know how ants decided when to put a dead ant in the trash pile. So they isolated different chemicals that start showing up when an ant body is breaking down, ant it turns out it’s oleic acid.

If you put oleic acid on a live ant, all the other ants think she’s dead, and they will pick her up and carry her to the trash pile. Again and again, despite her attempts to not be in the trash pile. She will not be allowed to exit the trash pile and return to her sisters until she has managed to sufficiently groom the “I am dead” smell off.

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

by Kelsey Tan

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

Do you know anything about Camponotus pennsylvanicus? I've got a reproductive wit her first batch of eggs and it's been about 21 days since i think they were laid? Any clue when I could possibly see the first workers?

I… know absolutely nothing about ant husbandry.  Though I did just have a lovely hour riflfing through formiculture.com and learning about an entirely new thing, which is the best way to spend an afternoon.   This page right here says 20-30 days from eggs to larva, 10-15 days from larva to pupa and 18-25 from pupa to adult, so you could have more than a month until you see adults.

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

Ants Australia have just opened up an online ant store! The formicarium look great, and I can't wait to try one out! https://antsaustralia.com/

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

After about 20 minutes of feeding, the worker went back into the nest and was greeted by her two sisters and the queen. Immediately, the fed worker began feeding the rest all at once! It seems the colony was feeling hungry, and that bit of honey was just the thing to fill them up and energize them!

My Ant Set-up + Moving Into an Outworld - Ant Journal - June 20th

Ive decided that I will be moving Lil’Queenie and her 3 workers to an outworld set up!

On the left is her founding chamber formicarium, with two tubes attached. Both tubes have a mesh screen that prevents the ants from crawling into them. The left tube holds water for the ants to drink, as well as to keep humidity inside the chamber, and the right tube is for ventilation and air flow. On the right is a very small out world, with a solid sand bottom (the sand can’t move around), a plugged hole to the side for future tubing attachments, and a mesh covered hole at the top for ventilation. What I will be doing is taking off the ventilation tube from the formicarium and then I will place the whole thing inside the out world. This will allow the ants to come out from their home and explore for the first time.  I will be placing a small amount of honey on the acrylic lid of the chamber to welcome the ants to their new space, and give them their first taste of sweets!

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

The honey has been found! This greedy little worker has decided to feast on the meal first before telling the other workers first! She will likely fill both of her stomachs (ants have 2 stomachs: a personal stomach, and a social one. Ants can up-chuck liquid food from their social stomach to feed to their colony members, similar to a mother bird feeding her young) and return to the nest to feed the queen, the brood, and her fellow workers.

My Ant Set-up + Moving Into an Outworld - Ant Journal - June 20th

Ive decided that I will be moving Lil’Queenie and her 3 workers to an outworld set up!

On the left is her founding chamber formicarium, with two tubes attached. Both tubes have a mesh screen that prevents the ants from crawling into them. The left tube holds water for the ants to drink, as well as to keep humidity inside the chamber, and the right tube is for ventilation and air flow. On the right is a very small out world, with a solid sand bottom (the sand can’t move around), a plugged hole to the side for future tubing attachments, and a mesh covered hole at the top for ventilation. What I will be doing is taking off the ventilation tube from the formicarium and then I will place the whole thing inside the out world. This will allow the ants to come out from their home and explore for the first time.  I will be placing a small amount of honey on the acrylic lid of the chamber to welcome the ants to their new space, and give them their first taste of sweets!

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

Make that two brave workers! My guess is that these workers are the oldest two, since the other nanitic (Who you can see sitting beside the queen in the nest) only eclosed a day or two ago, and the younger workers tend to not want to leave the nest.

They still have not found the honey...

My Ant Set-up + Moving Into an Outworld - Ant Journal - June 20th

Ive decided that I will be moving Lil’Queenie and her 3 workers to an outworld set up!

On the left is her founding chamber formicarium, with two tubes attached. Both tubes have a mesh screen that prevents the ants from crawling into them. The left tube holds water for the ants to drink, as well as to keep humidity inside the chamber, and the right tube is for ventilation and air flow. On the right is a very small out world, with a solid sand bottom (the sand can’t move around), a plugged hole to the side for future tubing attachments, and a mesh covered hole at the top for ventilation. What I will be doing is taking off the ventilation tube from the formicarium and then I will place the whole thing inside the out world. This will allow the ants to come out from their home and explore for the first time.  I will be placing a small amount of honey on the acrylic lid of the chamber to welcome the ants to their new space, and give them their first taste of sweets!

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

The workers seem to still be curious, and have begun to explore the black painted exterior of the nest, but haven't tried heading up to the lid, or down to the sand. They seem to all be communicating frequently, especially with the queen.  One brave worker is now exploring the sand!

My Ant Set-up + Moving Into an Outworld - Ant Journal - June 20th

Ive decided that I will be moving Lil’Queenie and her 3 workers to an outworld set up!

On the left is her founding chamber formicarium, with two tubes attached. Both tubes have a mesh screen that prevents the ants from crawling into them. The left tube holds water for the ants to drink, as well as to keep humidity inside the chamber, and the right tube is for ventilation and air flow. On the right is a very small out world, with a solid sand bottom (the sand can’t move around), a plugged hole to the side for future tubing attachments, and a mesh covered hole at the top for ventilation. What I will be doing is taking off the ventilation tube from the formicarium and then I will place the whole thing inside the out world. This will allow the ants to come out from their home and explore for the first time.  I will be placing a small amount of honey on the acrylic lid of the chamber to welcome the ants to their new space, and give them their first taste of sweets!

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

Success!  You can see where I placed a tiny amount of honey on the lid of the formicarium. I’m most excited to see how they will react, and how long it will take for them to find the honey.  So far, the workers seem very excited and are running around inside the nest, but haven't dared move outside the comfort of their circular domain. I keep seeing them move to the open entrance and look out, but never moving to the outside of the nest. 

My Ant Set-up + Moving Into an Outworld - Ant Journal - June 20th

Ive decided that I will be moving Lil’Queenie and her 3 workers to an outworld set up!

On the left is her founding chamber formicarium, with two tubes attached. Both tubes have a mesh screen that prevents the ants from crawling into them. The left tube holds water for the ants to drink, as well as to keep humidity inside the chamber, and the right tube is for ventilation and air flow. On the right is a very small out world, with a solid sand bottom (the sand can’t move around), a plugged hole to the side for future tubing attachments, and a mesh covered hole at the top for ventilation. What I will be doing is taking off the ventilation tube from the formicarium and then I will place the whole thing inside the out world. This will allow the ants to come out from their home and explore for the first time.  I will be placing a small amount of honey on the acrylic lid of the chamber to welcome the ants to their new space, and give them their first taste of sweets!

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

My Ant Set-up + Moving Into an Outworld - Ant Journal - June 20th

Ive decided that I will be moving Lil’Queenie and her 3 workers to an outworld set up!

On the left is her founding chamber formicarium, with two tubes attached. Both tubes have a mesh screen that prevents the ants from crawling into them. The left tube holds water for the ants to drink, as well as to keep humidity inside the chamber, and the right tube is for ventilation and air flow. On the right is a very small out world, with a solid sand bottom (the sand can't move around), a plugged hole to the side for future tubing attachments, and a mesh covered hole at the top for ventilation. What I will be doing is taking off the ventilation tube from the formicarium and then I will place the whole thing inside the out world. This will allow the ants to come out from their home and explore for the first time.  I will be placing a small amount of honey on the acrylic lid of the chamber to welcome the ants to their new space, and give them their first taste of sweets!

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

3rd Nanitic - Ant Journal - June 19th

3rd nanitic! There are 2-3 pupae in that little brood pile that should be ready to eclose within the next week or two.  These girls will be getting their first taste of food in a week! 

[lovethoseantyboys-blog]

Henry Horenstein. From the «Animalia» series

[::SemAp Twitter || SemAp::]