Mulder's Temnothorax ambiguus

[mulder]

This colony was collected May 9, 2015 on the north shore of Sugar Island, Michigan.  I'd picked up four or five acorns with the telltale hole in the shell.  Only one contained a colony.  





They had no brood when I found them.  There are just over 20 workers and a queen.  She's actually visible just to the left of the wax paper.  They were milling about constantly until I put a piece of the acorn shell in the petri dish with them.  






They immediately settled back into it, and by March 20, the queen had laid eggs.  I find the shell convenient because I can easily flip it over to check on them. 





This image is from my microscope camera, which needs more lighting than was available at the time.  This was March 29.  Not only have the first eggs hatched into larvae, there are new eggs already.  I haven't seen any identifiable pupae, but I'm not sure I could with all the workers guarding the brood.




One of the microscope pictures I used to identify the species.  I really can't recall the magnification I used, but I suspect it's 100x or 400x.  As soon as I'd learned there were native acorn ants in Michigan, I'd hoped to find some.  Interestingly enough, they were the first ants I found with a queen.

[mulder]

There are pupae! I counted at least two when I went to feed them tonight. They both have well-formed legs clearly visible. I've only been checking on them once a week to fill the water tower and change the food. I'll be checking on them more often now. I'll try and get pictures the next time I do.

I've also made the decision to move them to a Tar Heel Ants Inception chamber. It will probably be their permanent home. I'm intending to cover the nestblock lid with transparent red plastic. My hope is they'll be easier to check on than flipping the acorn shell every time. I just placed the order tonight, so it'll be a few weeks before I'm moving them.

[mulder]

As promised, here's a pic! I'm getting along with my cheap camera a bit better. I counted six pupae in the image below. There are a few larvae underneath them, and a small ball of eggs.