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Post by Wood~Ant on Feb 20, 2009 19:42:31 GMT
With a touch of warm late winter sunshine coming through Jenant's south facing window, it was really quite spring like in her room today. So much so that it tempted our largest Messor barbarus colony to begin a few nest improvements to the point of opening up a very large entrance hole, forming what looked like a large cave. So this set of pics is named very aptly "The Cave Dwellers", which started off with only 2 workers and soon grew into a horde of busy ants moving sand and small stones Note on the last photo a worker ant has just put down a pebble much bigger than herself, which just shows the strength of these girls More information about this colony can be found here} queenant.proboards82.com/index.cgi?board=records&action=display&thread=2314
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Post by Nattybob on Feb 21, 2009 1:06:34 GMT
Wow, those are some nice pics the girls must be up for a spring clean after so long dormant! Nathan
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Post by Wood~Ant on Feb 21, 2009 14:19:08 GMT
We (Jen and I) could hardly believe our eyes today. This colony has been at work all night and now the hole is completely sealed up, having been filled in with moist sand. I simply cannot understand the logic of the ant mind, as they dug out this large entrance hole only to seal it again just 24hrs later. Not even a sign of a tiny hole is left, and it's as if the thing never existed in the first place. Good job Jen took these pics when the ants were actively digging, or else it would be hard for anyone to believe. Why the ants did this is a mystery Perhaps they decided it still isn't quite warm enough yet to open up such a large hole which may let cold air in at night
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Post by Caydenn on Mar 22, 2009 14:45:08 GMT
wow jen beautiful photos. And I agree it is amazing to see the size of objects ants can carry
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