Stronghold

The Acromyrmex octospinosus have made themselves a stronghold in the Tic-Tac box. They built a gate made of dried leaves and a moat out of old bread crumbs, which they are now using as a refuse pile:

Here is their forage box:

Next week I will add a new tupperware pot so they have another place to relocate to, should they wish to do so.

House upgrade

My Acromyrmex have expanded a lot and thus I have added a foraging pot to their setup, as well as put them in a bigger pot. They have lots of room to expand for the next few months now.

This is their old setup:

The fungus was already coming out of the Tic Tac box.

This is their new setup:

Small Pheidole

The first other Pheidole workers are born. They are tiny and probably measure about 1mm. I will not be keeping this queen as I find ants which are too small boring.

Mess hall

The big Pheidole I have have made a mess out of their nest. They seem to be pretty happy, even though one of the two big soldiers has vanished without a trace.

Here's a short video of them:

The substitutes

The other colony I have has been finally identified. It is Camponotus substitutus. They are growing fast and I really need to speed up the plaster nest I am making for them.

Six becomes five

My Camponotus cruentatus are doing fine, albeit expanding slowly. There were six workers, but one died last week. In any case, there are a few pupae and more workers will be born very soon.

Adoption 2

My reddish Camponotus has adopted a soldier of a much bigger Camponotus species. I think this species (whatever it is) should be renamed to Camponotus adoptivus or somesuch =c]

Sadly it died less than a week after it was born. The other ants didn't kill it, it simply went to a corner and died. Since it comes from a big Camponotus species which lives in trees, I think it needed some sap which was not available. I can't tell, though.

I moved this colony to a bigger box, but I will give them away to a friend in Bahia next week. They expand very quickly.

Notice how the queen is full of food. Her gaster is almost bursting :)

New shack

The Camponotus rufipes like wood, so I gave them some wet toilet paper to chew. They started building a nest with it.