Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
Powered by phpBB Social Network © phpBB SN Group
Deutsche Übersetzung durch phpBB.de
Time : 0.018s | 43 Queries | GZIP : On
Hi all,
I want to tell you about a very strange phenomenon, and i would know if this phenomenon has been observed by anyone.
A my friend tried into an experiment and he fused two different Lasius niger colony.
The colony A had a queen, a small brood composed by eggs and small larvae, and few workers (about 20). The colony B had no queen, approximately 50 workers and a large brood composed by larvae and pupae. My friend collected the colony B from a bigger colony found in nature (he didn't find the queen).
My friend put the colonies into the fridge, where there was a temperature of 3-5°C.
Then, my friend took the queen from the colony A and he put her into the colony B. As naturally, the colony B adopted the queen from the colony A. Two days later, my friend took the queen from the colony B and put her into the colony A. As naturally, workers accepted her mother.
Two colonies were still into the fridge. Two days later, my friend put both colonies into a container, into the fridge. The workers from different colonies were very aggressive, but while workers fought, the queen was indifferent to the situation. Later, workers miraculously stopped to fight (only two workers died into the fight) and the broods from two colonies has been grouped together. Workers were friendly with the ones from different colony.
Now, a month later the fusion, the colony is fine.
Two colonies were completely unrelated (the queen, that found the colony A, comes from Switzerland, while the colony B was collected in Italy...).
Excuse for my bad english, I hope that someone understand :)
Yes, it is sometimes possible with monogyn species when a group of ants has no queen. The queen is main source of specific colony scent, so after some time far from their nest workers smell 'neutral' and are able to get a new scent of other colony. Using fridge increases chance of success, however it's still risky. This can also work even with different (but closely related) species. Nice experiment anyway :)
I'ld like repeat the experiment for see what happen when the queen stay in the colony B for more time. Even, workers won't be aggressive at all :-)
Not so strange, could happen in nature, like Tail explains. Still very ricky though.
It is easy way to make polygyn colonies of monogyn-type specie , but it is risky. It realyl can looks like it is all OK , but it maybe is not. They maybe do not fight or so , but queens can eat eggs of that another queen , also workers can prefer one of these all....
This worked fine for me when merging a colony of P h eidole pallidula, with out a queen, with one that had a queen.
i have done the same but with lasius flavus and M yrmica rubra but it was when i was collecting them but at first they where a bit jumpy. both colony's had queens but the queens did not fight it was weird ? anyone explain.
oh ya i'm from canada and live in it.
Cant explain that. Lasius niger or quit agrassive Myrmica rubra or not soft nether so i should think they would fight. I think this is a really rare case and i dont recomend trying it yourself people. ;)
I very often find Lasius flavus sharing the same stone as Myrmica rubra with out any workers being agressive towards each other. Lasius niger is much more agressive than Lasius flavus and seem to kill any Myrmica that come too close to the nest.