Pheidologeton diversus

[Frogger1]

Thanks for the reply, It's funny seeing all of them placing the bits of soil on the food :p I just put some more raisins in and they're all gathered around one piece which they have completely buried, I also gave them a large-ish cricket earlier which has now dissapeared. It'll be five weeks since I first got them this thursday!

[Frogger1]

The ants seem ok today, they've also been collecting seeds. I had hid some seeds on a piece of cork bark when I first got them and they were untouched for ages. I looked today and the ants are carrying seeds back from there and on the piece of bark there are no more seeds! They must of shifted them all at night as there were alot of seeds there, I've put some more seeds in and there are workers over there already starting to carry them back.

I haven't seen any more infested individuals, I'm sure there are parasites still in there but the population of the mites seems to have lowered (Hope I'm not speaking too soon). I am however still considering Hypoaspis Miles, I'm not sure whether they'll do damage to the workers but I'm convinced they wont damage the queen due to how miniscule they are.

Ive also been told again by more people that the parasitic mites are geographically specific, parasitic mites not too be confused with the foraging mites. I guess I'll be researching mites tonight too look into this more.

[Frogger1]

The ants are going crazy for seeds tonight, they've taken hundreds tonight and are already going through more. It seems odd that they've suddenly started foraging for seeds, I've literally only seen them take a couple seeds in the five weeks I've had them until tonight obviously :p They are still eating roaches and everything else, the seeds are about 2' away from the nest and they're marching back and fourth with them, I've also ordered some Hypoaspis as I seen some more infested ants, will be interesting too see what happens with them!

[armyoforigin]

Well the mites situation is sounding way more positive, I hope it hold up!

Well there are plenty if pictures out there (Mostly of German ant keepers) with pictures of locally caught insects infested with mites and journals documenting how their (non native) species became infested, as long as they can latch on and suck the hemolymph I don't see any reason parasitic mites from any region would be picky!
But I am sure there are specific mites for certain species, but I for one wouldn't know the difference, I think we need some mite experts on here =P

Perhaps some new majors have been born and are going to mill the seeds?? I notices with my T. caespitum colonies that when they had a population boon they switched from pure protein and started taking a lot of seeds, maybe when the population is a bit more stable they start harvesting seeds for the future, when they are a bit more secure that there will be a future that is!

You never know, this may be a very good sign!!!

[Frogger1]

I did see some soldiers during feeding today, which didn't look to have any parasites on them which is a good sign. Unfortunately I don't know much about mites but as you said, I can't imagine a parasite being fussy over what they infest!

Also that makes sense, the first night I got my colony when they moved nest I remember seeing some very large larvaes, I think I have a pic of one on the first or second page of this thread and I also remember seeing some larvaes (not as big as the other one but still large) within a chamber a few weeks ago. The third lot of seeds I put in last night, half of them have gone and the ants seem to still be foraging for them. I also put a roach in earlier, two soldiers and hundreds of workers came to take it back to the nest, the swarm was massive!

I also seen one of the soldiers getting attacked by a worker, the worker latched onto its leg and I thought the soldier was going to get killed as more workers were gathering around it but they all backed off. It doesn't seem to have done any damage but why do the workers do this? This is the second time I've seen a soldier get attacked now, and both times it has been workers attacking....

[adam james]

Hello Mate, glad to hear your colony is improving , Regarding the soldier being attacked i too have seen this but with my workers, It usally happens after feeding them , one worker must get the scent of the insect over it and for a few seconds the other workers dont seem to reconize the colony odor on the ant. Its just a thought im not 100% sure lol.

Have you seen the video of my colony, one of the workers gets bullied by a few workers in it then they let it go and it carries on cleaning itself

Regards

Adam

[Frogger1]

Hey Adam,

Thanks! Maybe you are right about the scent, I can't imagine it being anything else as the worker left the soldier after about a minute :p Also I have seen the video, really interesting and I'm also enjoying reading about your colony!

Harley

[armyoforigin]

Actually I have an idea about the intra-colony attacks, when research was first done on the Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) invasion in the USA it was thought that they all belonged to one giant supercolony, however we now know that there are a few super colonies in the United States and that in their native range they form normal colonies with normal colony aggression responses.

Interestingly there was some work done on some lab colonies of Linepithema humile and in the same lab some roaches were being bred/studied, so to save money they of course fed the roaches to the ants! Makes sense right?
Well after feeding the ants on the roaches the ants that had been feeding on the roach were attacked by the other ants in the colony! As if they were from a separate colony, very interesting indeed as these ants were from a USA supercolony and should have shown no aggression even to ants separated by miles....

As it turn out the roaches happen to have on the exoskeleton some complex hydrocarbons (I think that's what they are) the same kind that ants coat themselves in to make a specific colony odour, when the ants fed on the roach these hydrocarbons rubbed off and made them smell like ants from a different colony thus they were attacked, though the ants being attacked did not retaliate as they still recognised their nestmates colony odour.


Perhaps a similar thing is happening to your colony? Though it does not sound like there is any danger at all to your ants so I wouldn't worry about it!

Lol, sorry for the long explanation but it was all relevant!


Edit:
Oh darn, Adam beat me to it

[Frogger1]

Thanks for the reply Interesting stuff, it does seem that this is the case then although they stop attacking after a short while. My soldier was trying to retaliate though but because the worker was more towards the back of the soldier, the soldier couldn't reach it Mandibles were wide open though and I thought it had caught the worker at one point, that's when the worker let go.

Also for anyone interested in the predatory mites, I have been told they have now been re-classified from Hypoaspis Miles to Hypoaspis Geolaelaps. Mine should arrive next tuesday.

[Frogger1]

I spotted an ant with parasitic mites on its body earlier, excited to see whether the Hypoaspis will have much of an impact. The ants are still taking food and still showing interest in seeds. It seems they took too many though as there are lots of seeds just left outside of the nest and they've started too grow into the soil now aswell. :p

[Frogger1]

I just found a dead soldier being carried away by some workers, one that I had seen the other day which didn't look good as it's abdomen looked a little deflated, but I took it out and it was crawling with parasites! I've put these ants bodies in a little tub too keep the parasites in there, then once the Hypoaspis arrive I can test them by putting some into this tub. I will capture some workers aswell, put them into a tub aswell as my other soldier into a tub of it's own as that one too has mites and release some Hypoaspis into the tubs too see what happens with live ants.

On another note, looks like I have some cleaning up too do,

[AntsNational]

The mites eat the dead ants in the refuse pile, I have these with my Attas as well. Do not be worried about those kinds of mites.

[Frogger1]

Hey Vasile,

These mites my ants have, no doubt are parasites, they are different too the ones I believe you are reffering to that feed off of leftovers etc. and when using magnification too look at the ants you can actually see their mouth parts latched onto the ant, like a tick. After a while they start too get more bulbous from feeding off of the ant and then the ant gradually gets weaker and dies. I'm not worried about the other mites as I see them as being beneficial but these parasitic mites are a real problem.

Harley

[AntsNational]

These are most likely grain mites as I think I stated earlier. Most likely an Acarus sp.

[Frogger1]

Oh right, maybe I'm getting confused but are the grain mites the white ones? As the ones latched onto my ants are black-brown kind of colour and behave differently too the white ones.