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Hello everyone,
I have decided to start a journal of Paraponera clavata on my website. Most pictures can be found on my website. I received the ants 2 days ago from a personal friend and the colony consists of 1 queen and 6 workers. I plan to document this colony's "primitive" sociobiology for a paper in which I will make comparisons from the other ants I keep in relevance to the ancient lineage of ants. (I am researching and observing many primitive species).
Anywho, I keep them in one of my customized nests and the queen has laid her first egg today. Humidity and temperature are both quite high during the day, and at night the temperature cools down (and the daytime light is off). They are kept in a 40gal aquarium with 3 packed-down inches of pre-boiled coco-fibre, peat and sand. Here is a picture of the egg, I will update when the colony reaches the next stage of development.
Edit Uta
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Well colour me jealous Vasile! You have some great ant species, I am looking forward to hearing about your P. clavata, best of luck with them!! :)
Arrgh...you got some ubercool ants there Vas...
Keep the info comming!
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Well colour me jealous Vasile! You have some great ant species, I am looking forward to hearing about your P. clavata, best of luck with them!! :)
Thanks Armyoforigin, but it's not my motive to make anybody jealous!
The queen has moved out of the nest and under the substrate near the left side of the aquarium. I can't see the egg but I noticed that the ants created a chamber which the tunnels connected to (great spot because I can still view activity). They have constructed this just as I read the notes about their nest construction. I'm excited for more eggs and progress. :)
I'm having a bit of a problem, the temperature and humidity of the enclosure are the same as any tropical vivarium, but there are two dead workers and they have not accepted any food I have tried. I've tried crickets, mealworms, cockroach. They seem to be extremely picky. They won't even lap up the sugar water. Anyone have any advice?
I am sad to report that this journal will no longer continue. The transport seems to have shaken up the ants too much and the colony is not doing well. I will look more into it but for now the only survivors are two of the workers. The queen has been missing for about 3 weeks now and unfortunately I presume her to be dead. I didn't find her when I carefully dug up the terrarium. I will work on these species again sometime. The two workers will be kept alive for as long as possible. They still are picky and aren't eating a thing. This is extremely frustrating!