Manica rubida 2019

[TenebrousNova]

Another year, another attempt at keeping this lovely species. 

This Manica rubida queen arrived from Antsrus today and has a nice pile of eggs. She's very calm and I'm hoping to try her on some food in a bit! 

In the past I've had no trouble with getting these queens to raise their first few generations of workers. It's when Winter comes that things start to go downhill. I'm hopeful that this time I will succeed. Anyway, here she is!





As always, comments/feedback are more than welcome.

[TenebrousNova]

Most of the eggs have now hatched into rapidly growing larvae!



I tried the queen on a little bit of sugar water and she drank it all. She then started attacking her first mealworm.

[TenebrousNova]

Here's the queen having a drink.



The larvae have already grown a bit!

[TenebrousNova]

I just took this footage of one of the larvae chewing at a cricket leg with my microscope. Apologies in advance for the shakiness.

[TenebrousNova]

The larvae are still growing steadily:



I tried looking at them under the microscope with black and white settings instead of colour. I was able to get a view of small black moving blobs that I'm assuming are their organs. Strange, but cool. It reminds me of an ultrasound scan but for ant babies rather than humans.