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Greetings all,
As of Friday, November 4th, 2011 I am a proud owner of a bicolor Atta cephalotes species. The reason why they are a bicolor is because they have an unusual color pattern consisting of an orange body with black legs and a black thorax. I got them from a personal supplier in Germany and I'm quite excited to attempt this species. For all you out there who don't know me, I'm a 22 year old guy from Canada and I love ants. They've been my passion since I could walk. I currently keep a wide variety of different species, some foreign some local all with proper permissions. If this colony succeeds and grows I will continue to post in this log.
For starters, I went to an arts and crafts store and purchased some acrylic containers which you'll see below, as well as some clear plastic tubing and of course some coco-fibre substrate. PM me for dimensions of the tubes and containers.
I (pressed for time) used a lighter and melted holes into the acrylic containers and when they were soft enough I pushed the tubing through. By keeping the setup relatively small I can easily maintain the humidity and the heat as well as giving the ants space to forage and dump their waste. The setup is made out of three different sized containers. The smallest one is the garbage/waste disposal. The one beside it is the largest and it houses the colony. The next one is the medium sized container which will be the foraging area. Once the ants outgrow this setup I will carefully move them to a bigger setup similar to the one they're in now.
I then boiled water and put in a third of the coco-fiber. Whilst it was disassembling, I stirred it slowly. By boiling the coco-fiber one kills off any harmful mites/eggs, springtail eggs and bacteria that may kill the ants/fungus. I let it boil for a good 10 minutes, then sit for another 15 minutes. I then de-juiced it (while still hot) of the majority of its water. This way the heat and humidity of the substrate will mimic the natural rainforest substrate that these ants sometimes live in (otherwise its natural clay). I also made tiny holes at the tops of each containers. This will release the carbon emitted by the fungus, but keep the humidity in. The walls of the containers are humid and warm.
When I introduced the ants to their set up, I noticed that the fungus was quite deteriorated. From a span of 24 hours I noticed a very big difference as it has become whiter and healthier looking. I placed in half of a raisin for them and they happily have been eating it all day, as well as I noticed they were seemingly regurgitating it up as well to the fungus. I could be wrong, but if I'm correct then that's awesome! :D
Here are some pictures of the colony and the setup and materials.
Enjoy!
So the ants have reassembled their fungus, and also noting they actually do take a strong liking to raspberry leaves! Does anyone know of other leaves that they favour? I've tried a bunch from a list off of different zoo's and exhibits but they really take a favour to raspberry leaves. It's very interesting watching them forage, cut, carry and return leaf cuttings to the nest. I like seeing the teamwork of bringing in the harvest! One can follow my colony online at my youtube channel.
http://www.youtube.com/user/AntsNational?feature=mhee
This colony is going to be documented for educational purposes and in the effort to conserve the natural habitat in which they live. Whilst the colony is still small, its developmental stages will be documented for all to see. The workers have been chewing up the leaves, defecating on them and placing fungal threads onto the pulp. New fungus is being cultured:)
Here are some pictures of the colony!
Everything there looks great! The setup looks really nice!
The Atta colony has been tearing up the fungus piece by piece and has been transporting it into the medium chamber where there's more substrate. This was originally the plan that I wanted to come into effect. I wanted the ants to begin building a nest in the chamber furthest from the small garbage chamber. I can see a second fungus garden inside the nest entrance and I noticed they've built a deep large chamber into the soil. It's great to see these ants hard at work constructing a nest like this. They have been gathering raspberry leaves daily and have been feeding the fungus. The humidity and temperature are roughly unchanged as it is still quite humid and quite warm. They have also transported most of the larvae and eggs into the new nest. Unfortunately, the queen is still outside of the nest with the majority of the fungus. The nest entrance is quite small, definitely too small for the queen to get into so I'll closely monitor this and see how the ants sort this out. New eggs have appeared and some pupae have eclosed. It's astonishing to see such creatures work so hard to survive as a unit.
I've noticed that over the past few days the Atta colony has moved almost the entire fungus garden+ queen into an underground chamber that they excavated themselves. I've made the decision to want to observe them in a more naturalistic-suited habitat. I'm going to fill a tank 2/3 with the coco-fibre (boiled and strained first). I believe this will be the safest way to allow the ants to do their natural thing and build their garden underneath the soil. I will entice them to dig near a corner of the tank so the chamber will be viewable. Will post pics in a few days,
Cheers.
Wow. Great videos on your youtube channel. Well done and very entertaining to watch.
Wow. Great videos on your youtube channel. Well done and very entertaining to watch.
Thankyou! I'll keep them coming.
Cheers
Yeah your colony and your videos look great!
Keep going with your great job!
When I get a good level of experience I want a colony of those ants! They have such a great behavior.
Yeah your colony and your videos look great!
Keep going with your great job!
When I get a good level of experience I want a colony of those ants! They have such a great behavior.
Thankyou! :grin:
Currently the fungus has grown from a bunch of fragments during shipping to almost the size of a clementine. I upgraded the set up which I will post pictures and a new video for on my channel within the week!
Cheers
Update:
A bunch of new pupae have appeared as well as quite a large number of eggs. The first worker eclosed yesterday and I'm quite pleased about it. Development happens each day. The fungus continues to grow upwards.
Cheers