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Post by Smudge on Oct 15, 2012 20:57:55 GMT
Fed the rubies today they are much more active recently always foraging so today I put in a locust with its back legs removed it was much larger than the workers, about 5 times larger but not fully grown immediatly a worker grabbed its leg and held on for dear life stinging 4 or 5 times before another worker came along and grabbed part of its abdoman. The locust was furiously trying to pull away but no matter what the workers would not let go. Within minutes more workers came until there was about 10 attacking it. They stung and pulled for 10 minutes until 2 of the remaining 4 legs came off. The locust now sluggish and very much as good as dead got dragged to the entrance and was pulled down. I stayed and watched it all very very exiting
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Post by Wood~Ant on Oct 16, 2012 7:54:47 GMT
I haven't tried mine on anything larger than a greenbottle fly, and as the weather is turning cold now and flies are in short supply, I have turned to tinned cat food which my Manica workers seem to enjoy eating. Nice to see yours are taking down insects like locusts.
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Post by Smudge on Oct 18, 2012 21:46:07 GMT
Todays menu
Fresh garden spider served alive and well
Haha so I the ants havent been very enthusiastic about the locust today so I tried something a bit differant. A large garden spider very much alive and in perfect health... I wanted to see how the manica faired against something that wasnt dying or at a disadvantage.
I dropped the spider in which was still curled up I dropped inear the entrance and within a few seconds a small worker found and grabbed it the spider fought but was in vain as the ant stung it. Soon it was joined by 12 other workers and in minutes the spider was killed and dragged down the entrance.
These ants are my favourite species by far.
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Post by Smudge on Oct 19, 2012 15:18:08 GMT
Quick update:
On checking today I saw a worker pulling another worker which appeared to be dying only differance is it was stinging it, this led me to the conclusion they must have fought at some point.... Not to sure why though
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Post by Smudge on Oct 26, 2012 15:13:54 GMT
Well do not know what to say for a change about this colony... The other day they were very active with 4 or 5 workers foraging and another 3 or 4 removing dirt up until the point where I dropped a meal worm in which proceeded down their entrance tunnel... Very bad idea it was swarmed by the workers and eventually stung to death. It was left on the surface for a day before eventually being dragged down into the tunnel out of site. Since then the workers have been very sheepish and actually ran from a small fly I placed in yesterday.. They have also not touched the honey water which I put in for them which is very strange indeed.
I have however found where the brood are being kept. In a long chamber at the bottom of the tank. But it appears to only be larvae si I'm not sure if they have eggs or pupae elsewhere.
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Post by Smudge on Nov 1, 2012 18:38:57 GMT
So the colony seems do be doing fine with what looks like more workers being born all the time. They are forever digging out chambers and are no longer keeping the brood in the now very long chamber at the base of the tank to somewhere I cannot see. They have regularly been exepting spiders so thats a good thing. I did want to try them on wax worms but my local pet store have been quite crappy with they're live food recently so bugs from the garden will have to do. Also there seems to be a build up of fruit flies in my bearded dragon tank so I have been using them as well.
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Post by Smudge on Nov 17, 2012 19:03:41 GMT
My manica are as active as ever with what seems to be more and more workers appearing all the time from knowhere. But not that I'm complaining at all. I put a waxworm in the other day and counted 20+ workers attacking it more in the main entrance tunnel. I have looked for the brood but they are no where in sight. The tunnel the chamber at fhe bottom of the tank is still growing ever longer. It is now nearing the opposite end of the length of the tank.
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Post by Smudge on Nov 28, 2012 16:29:55 GMT
Loads of activity in this nest with a lot more visible workers. So there must be an increase of brood somewhere. The ammount of chambers and tunnels are getting massive. I also had a nice suprise to find that they have also started using the ytong which has been filled with soil.
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Post by Smudge on Jan 19, 2013 0:44:22 GMT
Well I can see what the sites say about the later generations of this species being much larger. As I fed them a pretty large locust today, about 40 ants came out and started attacking it with one very large worker who I at first thought was the queen.
This worker was big, it rivals the size of one of my camponotus ligniperdus minors. It was about a CM in length unfortunatly I didnt have my camera handy at the time but will keep a close eye out for her in future. Also have plenty of other photos I have been meening to upload.
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Post by myrmikonos on Mar 11, 2013 0:35:29 GMT
Hello Smudge. I wondered - do you get your ants into hibernation for a while? Also thank you for this journal. I am very interested in the structure of the ant-nest. Maybe there will be some pictures of the chambers and so on. sincerely m.
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