ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Coy]

I got my colony from your friend so I took his picture because I have no camera to make good pictures.

[insanebe]

@Insanebebe:
The workers are totally different (head shape, colour and queen's colour), and this queen is much smaller than my Messor Barbarus queen (0,9-1,0mm vs. 1,4-1,6mm).

@Messorus:
BUMMER. I didn't know that picking by hand could get them killed :O I picked most of the workers with the bottle (worker was on ground and i took it +some soil with the bottle, you know, like a shovel)
Yes, i'm sure that it was a bigger colony but I didn't have any equipment to dig so deep. I'm lucky that the queen was so close to surface. There were some really big majors so it had to be a bigger colony.

ps. Coy said it was not his queen

obviously, point i was making is u can't tell by looking

[Kale^^]

obviously, point i was making is u can't tell by looking

Well, you cant really know for sure but you can have a pretty good hunch and I think that would be satisfactory.

[Kale^^]

Good news:
There is a big pile of eggs and I presume some larvae too. They have eaten some fly cocoon stuffings and there is no new deaths.

Semi news:
They haven't collected any seeds yet.

Bad news: --

[JimmyVe]

I think it is to soon for them to collect seeds.

[Kale^^]

News:he
There definitely is more small larvae than eggs at the moment and they've grown in size, I don't think that new eggs have been laid by the queen, I've started to feed them more often even though they don't usually eat anything.

They are actually being quite timid, they rarely leave the nest during day, but hopefully this will change as the colony grows.

[Kale^^]

Updates:

The larvae has grown and soon they should morph to cocoon state. Pics when there are cocoons.
I've seen marks of eating: fly cocoon stuffings inside the test-tube and swollen abdomens. I'm expecting new workers in a few weeks.

[Kale^^]

Yay, a pupa. And also a confirming mark of eating: reddish-coloured brood (food: red-colored maggots).

Click on the image to enlargen it.

I know, the test-tube is quite dirty and flooded but they haven't moved out in the fresh one so I'll just have to wait.

[JimmyVe]

Nice, keep up the good work.

[Kale^^]

New workers!

A couple of weeks ago the first new workers emerged, oh I was so happy to see them finally. I would have mentioned this earlier but I was unable to get a proper picture. Now there is about 20 workers, half of them are newbies and the amount of brood is slowly increasing. Today, for the first time, I have witnessed the basin being scrutinized by a worker, which is a sign that could forebode the end of their timidness, since previously only small pieces of evidence of terrestrial movement had been observed.

However I've come to the conclusion that this species needs a higher temperature because the development from first eggs to first workers took somewhat 3 months to complete. Due to this observation their basin has been laying on a heat pad 24/7 and this is clearly helping the brood in the developing process.

Anyway, as there is a saying "no pic no proof", so enjoy:

Some fresh workerst to be seen in the picture above, also you can see that the queen is hiding in a small cave they have carved in the toilet paper bud.