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Post by Wood~Ant on Oct 10, 2006 14:49:49 GMT
I have made a shortened version of the filming of wood ants, which I did in April 2004. The ants had been out in the warm spring sunshine to repair and build their mound nests  Sadly the copy has lost much of its sharpness, colour and quality; as the original digital video is really much better  |
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Post by Jenny on Oct 10, 2006 14:57:33 GMT
I am very disappointed in the copying quality of Photobucket and YouTube. The film has no color and the ants go blurred. In fact it is not like the original film at all  We spent hours working it all out and uploading it all, but I think this will be the first and last time No wonder their services are free!! I will stick with watching the ants I film in the future on DVD, as it is much better quality without color bleed too.........  |
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Post by Ghost on Oct 11, 2006 1:14:19 GMT
I'd say you did a fantastic job filming such a speedy ant.  That colony looked huge! I especially liked when one of them lifted that huge twig and you made the good comparison of a 12 foot tree trunk. I love ants on film because you get to see the ants in action and not just some inanimate picture, hopefully there are more films to come!  Ryan |
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merries61
Ant Larva 
In deepest sympathy, died 2007
Posts: 9
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Post by merries61 on Nov 12, 2006 15:47:20 GMT
Hi Jenant,
I tried converting DVD (INF etc) files to MPEG1 files and agree a lot with what you say. It happens though that there is a newer MPEG2 video file format that retains a lot more of the DVD quality. I'm going to try this one next and conversion id free as before.
regards
Merries61
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Post by nadirdrummer on May 14, 2008 7:58:19 GMT
Cool video. Theres a colony of (what I believe to be) Camponotus in a forrest near me - Bracknell, Berks. It must be 40k workers or more. I'll try remember to take the camera with me next time I walk the dog.
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Post by Wood~Ant on May 14, 2008 8:10:17 GMT
Cool video. Theres a colony of (what I believe to be) Camponotus in a forrest near me - Bracknell, Berks. I don't think you'll find that they are Camponotus, as this ant genus is not native to the British Isles. What you most likely have found is a large colony of Formica rufa, as this species is widespread throughtout the southern counties of England and extends its boundaries into Wales, but tends to go no further north than Staffordshire. Welcome to Ant Hill World, and thanks for the nice comment about the video  |
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Post by nadirdrummer on May 14, 2008 12:27:33 GMT
Ah right - I should've had a better look at them. I have a very young colony of Camponotus ligniperda (from Antstore) that looked very similar to the ones in the forrest. Black bums & head, and red/brown bodies. Come to think of it though I do not remember seeing any huge major workers, and the black was more of a dark grey. Still, the nest was insanely alive with movement and there were thousands of little mandibles pointing up at me. Anyone tried cross breeding?
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Post by Wood~Ant on May 14, 2008 13:34:37 GMT
I can understand your confusion, as both species of ant do look very similar; but there are differences bewtween these 2 species and indeed the Camponotus genus compared to the Formica genus. Without going into detail, I have shown both ants in the pictures below  Camponotus ligniperda worker.  Formica rufa workers, the top one was held in my finger and thumb.  |
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