ANTSTORE World of Ants

[delete-14751]

Has anyone fed a Locust to L.niger? If so was it live?

Can L.niger hald a live full grown Locust????

[tail__]

No, I'm sure they can't. But they will eat dead one, maybe it would be better if you cut it into pieces.

[delete-14751]

I thougt whatch them take it don't would be amazing!

[JimmyVe]

It is probably to big for them, not to mention the risk you are taking. It could kill several of workers and it could have some kind of bacteria that could kill the hole colony. Its always best if you boil an insect first before you give it to your ants.

[delete-14751]

So you never give live insects/food?

[SirJet]

As Jimmy said, without boiling the insect first to kill any parasites or bacteria you risk the whole colony if the insect is carrying anything.

[delete-14751]

I understand, just thougt the ants would be able to deal with most parasites/bacteria coz if it was that easy to kill them there wouldn't be so many of them!!

[tail__]

I sometimes give my ants living insects, but they are small, proportional to their size. Ants hunt mostly insects smaller than them, and only the large colonies, able to hunt in packs, occasionally also some a bit larger, but no European ants would be able to catch a living locust. (until it would be really unfortunate and fall directly on Formica mound)
Of course the risk of infecting by something deadly is small, but it exists - it's like allowing the house cat to hunt mice, well, they like that and MOST of them aren't hurt. Remember that SOME natural ant colonies, even large, really die from diseases and parasites, although they are minority.

[miszt]

Lasius niger cannot kill a locust, even a small one

[KiamCameron]

Thats weird I had a medium locust ages ago in an antworld that i put it in live to see what would happened i had lasius flavus in there they have like 150 workers and they swarmed it and started taking it apart... or was it a medium cricket cant really remember

[JimmyVe]

They where probably just lucky.