|
Post by Wood~Ant on Feb 14, 2010 9:11:22 GMT
Well,when I was three I use to drop food everywhere literally... it wasn't long before I had ants at my feet any time I walked out the house. They have the one technique that man can never master...Working as one. Try having a picnic sometime with cake or jam sandwiches and you'll soon attract ants, even if none were around when you started to eat ;D As for the "hive mind" as the communal intelligence of social insect is referred to, this is what makes ants, bees, hornets, wasps and termites work together as though they are controlled by one giant super brain. The thing that makes ants different from the others is, they are the only insects that like us, go to war against their own species, kill their own kind and capture other ant brood to raise as slaves. Although so called "slave ants" usually do no more work than they would in their own nest, and are treated as fairly as other members of the colony they are living in, except in some nests they may have to actually feed their captors which have jaws so big they are incapable of feeding themselves
|
|
|
Post by angelicdefender on Jul 25, 2011 4:50:09 GMT
I first got into ants because I had always been interested in insects and arachnids. However, I always noticed that ants always come in vast numbers (4-5 foragers is a vast number to a 6 year old, OK?). I wondered where they all came from. So in 2005, I officially dug up an ant nest. It was a Tetramorium caespitum colony, a young one, only about 10 months old. I remember seeing a massive ant that was not doing any work, but all the ants hurried to protect it. I took it that that was their dad (an eight year old doesn't know everything). I then watched columns of Formica fusca ants moving, and I always was intrigued by how the laziest ant was protected so much. I started researching and raising ants, and soon, I was known as the ant man at school.
|
|
streule
Callow Ant
Posts: 59
Likes: 2
|
Post by streule on Aug 4, 2011 9:15:50 GMT
It all started when I was 9 years old. I was old enough to stay at my Grandparents for a week or two in the summer holidays. My Grandad had an allotment and I would spend hours searching for L.niger Queens in the sandy soil. One day I found 5 L.Niger Queens in the same plot and put them into test tubes. From that day on I fell in love with ant keeping ;D Streule
|
|
|
Post by myrmica4ever on Aug 4, 2011 17:36:23 GMT
I've always been interested in animals, insects not so much, but it all started when my friend who lived next door got an ant world plastic slimline ant farm thing, so I used to go round every day looking at them and feeding them although they always died because we never had queens. I was 8. then I lost interest for 5 years and now I'm interested in them ever since the end of may when on a rubble path (the rubble went down about 2 foot) I kicked over a stone and found a myrmica rubra colony living under it and now I'm monitoring 5 wild colonies along with my captive Lasius flavus colony. in the wild colonies you can see the queens especially when it has been sunny. sorry its a bit long.
|
|
|
Post by TenebrousNova on Dec 20, 2011 10:48:00 GMT
It was the concept of a hive mind that interested me, and it is fascinating how a colony can act like one intelligent organism.
|
|
|
Post by IceWhyte on Dec 22, 2011 10:16:20 GMT
I first got into learning about ants when I was in Mallorca 2 years ago. Me and my girlfriend at the time were staying in a 5th floor apartment with a balcony. One day I was scranning some pringles and left the tub sitting out on the balcony. When we came back later I noticed that there was loads of ants cllimbing up and over the tube, I turned the tube on its side and went to bed. The next day when I went out there was thousands of these ants collecting the pringles, they had formed a perfect line all they way up the building wall and into the pringles. The day I got back from holiday I ordered a LN colony and an antworld.
|
|
|
Post by Wood~Ant on Dec 22, 2011 19:12:43 GMT
Perhaps we should add Pringles to the ant food list? What flavour were they?
|
|
|
Post by IceWhyte on Dec 22, 2011 20:08:08 GMT
Haha. Good idea. Sour cream and chive I do believe. I was in Mallorca again this year but they wouldnt eat the crisps I had, they must have the taste for the finer brands now.
|
|