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Say Jim, Do you know anything about Odontoponera transversa. I think mine are having some sort of Civil War. They are killing each other left and right. They have honey, maggots, crickets, mealworm ragout, humidity is steady at 70, temp is 22-26. Basin is 40x30x20, Humous, sandclay, some grass.Before hostilities started i counted 9out foraging, so there were probably what, 14-20 total in the colony? They dug a very impressive tunnel system, looked like all was well, and all of a sudden, out of the blue, they´re cutting each other to pieces. I don´t get it. HELP
aint got a clue.. but some pictures or even a video would be good.
Thanks Steve, I´ll see if I can get some photos up. These are ponerine ants right? Maybe they have inter-colony power struggles like H. venator and H. saltitor? Or they could be a new species, Odontoponera Sociopathicus Homocides...
New species, that would be cool. ;)
Well i'm not sure about that, the same behavior is also noticed with Myrmica rubra and some Camponotus species. The reason is hard to find out. Could be like you said, inter colony power. As you probably know Myrmica rubra can have more queens in one colony (some Componotus species to), could be that the workers are from another queen. In that case. But i believe you only have one queen so...
How many workers are killed this way ?
I once had the same with my Odontoponera transversa. At the mating flight all new queens were killed by the workers.
I think they are competitors when mating flight starts. But the new queens can't really spread away. So they were attacked.
Check the dead ants again if theire back looks irregular because of lost wings.
Killing new queens is much more common, if they stay to long with the old colony the workers could kill them.