This big girl arrived through the post on Tuesday 21/08/12 but was supposed to be a C.ligniperda and L.niger but I was sent the wrong package. But I decided Rather than send her back I would try her and the guy kindly offered to send me a L.niger and F.Sanguinea.
I moved her and her clutch of huge eggs into a large tube with one third water and have placed her somewhere dark and warm.
I think these are quite slow in developing so I must be patient....
Remember: Buddhism dictates that ant you are about to step on could be a reincarnated relative!
When she finally did something other than sit over her clutch of eggs in the video I have uploaded here -
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After a few seconds she decides she is thirsty and so she turns and heads to the wet end leaving her eggs.
meanwhile around 01:20 L.niger decides she wants to stretch her legs too... did she detect the other queens movement? maybe coincidence...
She keeps on drinking until 04:08 (sorry for the boring video, I don't know how to edit yet ) after a brief inspection of her bottom she decides all is well and takes another drink.
At 05:56 she has a quick cleanup and then decides at 06:25 that her eggs would probably be much better of with a bit more humidity - I never realised she controlled how much humidity the eggs are exposed to, you can see her taking her time to select just the right area.
She then headed back up the tube to check for dropped / left eggs before heading back to her clutch. My Tab lost wifi at this point so I had to use the rubbish onscreen controls again until it came back up.
Remember: Buddhism dictates that ant you are about to step on could be a reincarnated relative!