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Post by TenebrousNova on Oct 10, 2016 14:48:23 GMT
Right now this colony is carrying a bluebottle into their nest. I've noticed that although there's loads of brood and workers, occasionally they'll bring a dead pupa to the surface. I've seen these pupae in the full range of castes and they all sport some sort of deformity or injury like uncurled legs or dents in the head or gaster. There haven't been many but enough to make me wonder if this is normal.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Oct 10, 2016 14:59:01 GMT
Bare pupae are more easily prone to injury or accidental damage than those which are in a cocoon. Often these pupae will still become perfectly healthy worker ants, but may carry signs of their injury for life, such as dents or bits missing on the adult ant itself. Only if injury is very severe do they die, as ants injured prior to becoming adult account for a small percentage of adults in many species.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Oct 18, 2016 13:02:36 GMT
The surface has undergone a drastic transformation in the last week or so. The stone, which used to rest on the top, is now halfway down into the soil where it supports a cavernous nest entrance. Although I had made an effort a few weeks ago to remove some excess soil the ants have pushed it all up again! There isn't quite as much brood in the central chamber anymore. Looks like they're slowing down for the winter although there's still lots of foraging going on. I've put a stop to the media workers getting out but the minors are still managing to escape every few days. Last night I found three of them on the floor.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Oct 18, 2016 14:49:18 GMT
They did this exact same thing when I had them in the big silver tank, so eventually the stone could vanish from sight and form the roof of an underground chamber, which is where you may find a lot of the brood is stored and the queen resides in.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Nov 7, 2016 16:36:17 GMT
Despite decreasing ambient temperatures, this colony remains very active. Luckily for them they are quite close to the radiator. There are no pupae in the brood chamber but there's a lot of very small larvae that I imagine will pupate next year? The rock has sunk all the way to the bottom of the tank and now forms the roof of their brood chamber. There's lots of tunnelling going on along the sides which is fascinating to watch.
The Messors consistently make a mockery of me, workers having managed to escape every day despite the many layers of masking tape I've applied to the lid to prevent it. Not sure how they find their way out! I can spend half an hour watching them intently to determine how they do it and they won't make a move, yet minutes after I turn my back to pursue other activities I will find three of them on my floor...there's even an opportunistic spider who has made a small web near the floor where the Messors tend to land after escaping.
I'll find a way to stop the escapes eventually.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Nov 30, 2016 22:47:59 GMT
Strangely, for the last several weeks the Messors haven't been using their seed pot, even when filled with seeds. Instead they will dump a layer of excavated soil inside and leave the seeds to grow mouldy. If I scatter the seeds over the surface though, the workers will pick them up and bring them into the nest. Wonder why that is?
I also came across a rather large major on the surface who's right mandible was missing entirely. This didn't stop her from attempting to bite me when I picked her up for a closer look. I know that many disabled ants, whether deformed or injured will live normal lives. There's even a good photo somewhere of co-joined Acromyrmex twins! But what about ants such as this one who cannot contribute to the colony in any meaningful way? Maybe she acts as a replete.
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Post by Jenny on Dec 1, 2016 7:04:06 GMT
Old habits die hard with those seeds. When they were with us they would empty the seed pot to put the brood in there, and scatter the seeds all over the surface.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Dec 9, 2016 18:23:59 GMT
Lots of activity going on as always! I believe I've found how to stop the Messors from crawling under the tape and onto my floor...blue tack! Small pieces pinning the edges of the tape down have worked well. It's a plan that cannot fail. I removed the seed pot because I figured that maybe they'd "marked" it as a rubbish dump and that's why they refuse to eat out of it. Maybe I could clean off their pheromone trails? I opened the lid and was immediately accosted by a super-major, the first I've seen in a while: I narrowly avoided being bitten and cleaned the pot after removing the other workers. I put more seeds in it and returned it...they've gone back to dumping their rubbish in it. Ah well. There's often workers loitering inside...I guess they use it to warm themselves up and rest, although they haven't taken their brood to the surface for quite a while. Still, the workers will gather the seeds if they find them lying on the soil. This time I'm trying a shallow plastic lid filled with seeds. So far it has worked and they've taken a few from the lid. It was met with considerable aggression from the majors: during the first minute there were six of them angrily biting it. You can see a particularly stubborn major attacking it here. I've given the colony two live crickets which were quickly subdued. All it takes is for a worker to hold the cricket's leg long enough for a major to run over and clamp down on it...there's no way they can escape after that. Very good hunters for a mostly seed eating species. I also gave them four dried mealworms. They love them. Nest entrance: Hope you enjoyed this update.
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 28, 2017 14:34:16 GMT
Today I noticed something rather odd: a super-major being dragged around by a major, who she had by the back leg. Neither worker reacted aggressively when I picked them up. The super-major's jaws remained resolutely locked around her sister's leg. She barely makes any attempt to walk, letting the smaller major do that for her. Loads of antennae movement though and occasionally, the smaller major stops to groom them both. When she tries to climb an object, the super weights her down. I had to be careful not to let them wander too far along the windowsill, since Leon here was watching intently from his jade tree: Not a good photo, but I'm wondering if the super-major has some sort of jaw deformity. Wonder what this could be caused by? Thoughts? I've released them back to their colony and they're still acting as though nothing out of the ordinary happened.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 1, 2017 17:23:32 GMT
Here's the brood chamber, which contains some positively enormous larvae right now.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 6, 2017 19:26:23 GMT
I may have accidentally interrupted a nursery outing on the surface when I lifted the lid to feed them...there were some enormous pupae there! The colony's appetite has really increased. They stopped collecting seeds a while back but now they can't seem to have enough of them. The colony has taken six crickets today. Also, the seed pot has been repurposed. They constantly filled it with soil and never touched the seeds within it, so I filled it with wet cotton as a sort of water reservoir for them, sinking it mostly into the soil for easy access. I can't see what goes on inside, but the Messors are frequently bringing brood in and out of it. I suspect that they've turned it into a nursery.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Aug 7, 2017 21:19:48 GMT
I found that the surface was very dirty today so I started to clean the Messors out. I decided to take out the seed pot to clean that since it's been a very long time...but I cannot. As I mentioned before, I had filled the pot entirely with wet cotton as a water reservoir for them to drink from and buried it mostly in the soil. It turns out that when it dried, they excavated the cotton and filled it with seeds and major brood, with a very large group of workers! That dark mass you see at the back is not soil as you might think, but a huge swarm of angry Messors. It looks as though they're not going to let me clean the pot out, so I put it back where I found it.
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Post by Jenny on Aug 8, 2017 5:30:21 GMT
Ha Ha, I am so glad they are continuing in true fashion, and giving their keeper a challenge Jake and they are doing well
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jan 31, 2018 19:02:27 GMT
Now that most of the winter has come and gone, this colony is starting to become active once more. They've been doing an awful lot of digging in the last few days and constructed a few large nest entrances and there's still plenty of larvae visible in the brood chamber. I've decided I'll get them a few more rocks for them to dig around and use as reinforcement for their nest, since the soil is quite crumbly despite getting misted every few days.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Mar 22, 2018 4:23:22 GMT
I bought a tub of water crystals ages ago that I mainly give to feeder crickets and locusts. I wondered if the Messors would like it. Yes...yes, they do.
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