Pheidologeton diversus

[JimmyVe]

her head is almost as large as the queens!!

Already a super major than ? I think that is really soon for such a small colony, but not impossible.

Very nice pictures and i like the sound of theme doing fine. Hope they grow out to a nice and big colony.

How much colonies do you have from this species ? (2 ore more ?)

[Purifier]

Yeah. Congratulations from me, too. Nice to hear that your colony is fine
And how about the size of the colony? Must be more than 70 at the moment or?

[kashmir79]

wow, looks like a Super major !!

[ant dude]

great pics, great colony and great photogrerther

like purfier wants to know aswell, how big is your colony now roughely in size overall

[Ashton McStansfieldio]

Thanks Miszt, I definatly feel relieved now that they seem stable:)

@ JimmyVe I have 2 colonies now. My first one perished, second is doing well and third I have only just recieved, this is the one with the big major. She was already there when the colony arrived so could have been adopted maybe. I`m not sure but she does seem too big for such a young colony.

The workers of the new colony seem noticably smaller and more delicate than the workers of the older colony so i don`t think the queen has been taken from an existing nest...

@ kashmir I`m glad you like the pics man;)

Heya Purifier, Ant Dude I think the colony must have 120-150 workers now. there are more than 10 soldiers and you can often see around 30 workers in the foraging area with 1 or 2 soldiers.

one thing I haven`t enjoyed is watching the revenge of the crickets, I used to put them in live until I witnessed one of them biting off 5 of one of the soldier ants legs. The cricket was large so I thought this was maybe a one off and I had met Hercules of the cricket world but then I witnessed more insect violance... another cricket, this time it was biting the gasters off of several workers. I wasn`t impressed and will seek some less aggresive ant food when i`m next at the reptile shop...Until then I will have to struggle with my concience as I must continue to "incapacitate" the crickets myself

another thing i`ve noticed is that the ants find it harder to manuver dead insects through the tunnel into the nest. seems the movement of the struggling, live crickets prevented them from getting stuck in the tube...

[JimmyVe]

3 colonies form this species. Expensive not ?

Do you always give living food to your ants ? I only give them fruit flays alive, the rest i kill first.

[miszt]

LOL

now i know why i culdnt get any Pheid.div colonies! u bought them all Ashton

[kashmir79]

crickets do bite indeed, when i pick them up with the tweezers your can feel them nipping the tweezers, i tend to kill them first, cos they will fend for themselves

[Phasmid]

I find that the jaws of crickets are very obvious, so when I feed an extra large one to my mantids for example that need living pray, I tend to to clip the tip of the jaws with small scissors to prevent injury.

[miszt]

I always cut the head off crickets before giving them to my ants, they will eat anything, including ants, if they get the chance lol same goes for Locusts, and several other omnivorus insects, eg Centipedes, also have poisonus fangs

[Phasmid]

I never seem to have problems with locusts killing ants, they seem to just brush them off the way it would normaly clean it's self. It's the hind legs worry about, they can use them to crush just about any insect predator as long as it's smaller, and, of course, jump away with lots of ants still attached to it .

[mzfckr]

i dont like to kill insects... but i got to do because ants are hungry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ashton McStansfieldio]

yeah has been pretty expensive, bought them all over the net. Will def be more careful with the food i put in. The mealworms are safer but seem to dry out and be discarded very quickly by the ants...

[Ashton McStansfieldio]

Hmmm, I`ve been looking at the fruit fly cultures but they are apparently very smelly. Are there any other alturnatives out there?

[Phasmid]

Pin head crickets maybe