Saturday, 21 June 2008
Monday, 16 June 2008
What is there???
Lots of you may be wondering what there is to study about ants, well, a lot more things than you can study in Maths, you'd be suprised.
Now, lets start with the food they eat:
-Some like lasius niger will eat anything, the easiest to feed are the mymicinae species, because they can easily cut through things.
-There are also granivore types like Messor species who eat mainly graines, but they would require a bit of protein by feeding them insects.
-Before feeding insects, you need to keep them in a freezer for 2 days to kill any parrasites, but there have been parrasites known to survive longer than that.
Then there is how they use their pheromones:
-They use their pheromones to find their way inside the nest (because its pitch black), to show routes to food and to find their way ack to the nest.
-Pheromones are deposited all the time on the floor wherever an ant goes, it cant help it, and in the pheromone there is a code to what this leads to, and every ant that uses that pheromone replaces it with a new one with the same code so that it doesn't get worn out.
-"Now how do they use it to find food??? because they can see outside can't they???" you may be wondering, well yes they can see outside, but as you know, ants travel long distances to find food, they usually travel up to 100 meters, it may not be much for us, but look at their size, on the way as usual, they deposit a pheromone, and when they find food, for example a liquid of water+sugar, they will take as much as they can, then go back and deposit a stronger pheromone which has a code, probably saying "here is food", then you will see a lot of ants following the pheromone, here is the perfect example: http://akolab.com/fourmis/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=6014
These are some of the smallest examples i can give you, i will let you discover the rest by starting your own colony or looking at documents on the internet ;D
Now, lets start with the food they eat:
-Some like lasius niger will eat anything, the easiest to feed are the mymicinae species, because they can easily cut through things.
-There are also granivore types like Messor species who eat mainly graines, but they would require a bit of protein by feeding them insects.
-Before feeding insects, you need to keep them in a freezer for 2 days to kill any parrasites, but there have been parrasites known to survive longer than that.
Then there is how they use their pheromones:
-They use their pheromones to find their way inside the nest (because its pitch black), to show routes to food and to find their way ack to the nest.
-Pheromones are deposited all the time on the floor wherever an ant goes, it cant help it, and in the pheromone there is a code to what this leads to, and every ant that uses that pheromone replaces it with a new one with the same code so that it doesn't get worn out.
-"Now how do they use it to find food??? because they can see outside can't they???" you may be wondering, well yes they can see outside, but as you know, ants travel long distances to find food, they usually travel up to 100 meters, it may not be much for us, but look at their size, on the way as usual, they deposit a pheromone, and when they find food, for example a liquid of water+sugar, they will take as much as they can, then go back and deposit a stronger pheromone which has a code, probably saying "here is food", then you will see a lot of ants following the pheromone, here is the perfect example: http://akolab.com/fourmis/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=6014
These are some of the smallest examples i can give you, i will let you discover the rest by starting your own colony or looking at documents on the internet ;D
Not much
Not much happening to the colony, as usual i got back from school, and had a good look at them.
I saw that a new one was born, but got its colour before i got back from school, but there was no fungi, no parasites, larvae looked well fed, and the eggs are multiplying and develloping, i also saw that they dont seem to want any food, because they stacked the carcasses of insects into the entrance, but i think that thats just to change the hygrometrie.
Iforgot to tell you that i actually have another colony, lasius emarginatus, and i had 3 newborn babys in it today :D
lasius emarginatus looks like this:
I saw that a new one was born, but got its colour before i got back from school, but there was no fungi, no parasites, larvae looked well fed, and the eggs are multiplying and develloping, i also saw that they dont seem to want any food, because they stacked the carcasses of insects into the entrance, but i think that thats just to change the hygrometrie.
Iforgot to tell you that i actually have another colony, lasius emarginatus, and i had 3 newborn babys in it today :D
lasius emarginatus looks like this:
Sunday, 15 June 2008
Imagine
Ants can be kept in a little aquarium full of soil, and you keep the lid shut, imagine being one of those ants trying to get out, and you do, and then what??? You discover a new world, a large area that you can run around in full of dangers. And a kid goes up to your home and starts throwing rocks at it. Imagine.
Now lets talk about us, we live on this world, we are similar to the ants, we are probably also in a box, and we escape by going out to orbit, and guess what, we discover new worlds, we face new dangers, and something out there is probably causing all the natural disasters on our world.
I only just thought about that.
Now lets talk about us, we live on this world, we are similar to the ants, we are probably also in a box, and we escape by going out to orbit, and guess what, we discover new worlds, we face new dangers, and something out there is probably causing all the natural disasters on our world.
I only just thought about that.
A little baby ant
Posting again, i know, but i just found that i have a newborn ant :D, so that's one extra worker to the colony for 18 months :P
I dont have a good enough camera to take a picture of it so i thought that i would take an example from the internet, you can see a newborn ant to the right of the top one, a bit more greyinsh to the other ones ;D You can also see some coloured pupa ready to be born soon too.
I dont have a good enough camera to take a picture of it so i thought that i would take an example from the internet, you can see a newborn ant to the right of the top one, a bit more greyinsh to the other ones ;D You can also see some coloured pupa ready to be born soon too.
I found this colonie in the garden last year, luckily for me, the queen was just under the stone, and not hidden far underground like most colonies. She had only a few workers and a few larvae, and i scooped it all up and put it in a test tube with some water. Like this: the white is cotton, blue is water.
Then i went to other nests of the same type an took a few of the eggs, larvae and pupa to give the small colonie a boost, and its then that it all started, i fed them, and they are the easiest to feed.
Then when they had about 30 workers i built a nest and put them into it.
Then i went to other nests of the same type an took a few of the eggs, larvae and pupa to give the small colonie a boost, and its then that it all started, i fed them, and they are the easiest to feed.
Then when they had about 30 workers i built a nest and put them into it.
At home i have 4 ant nests:
Lasius niger: 1 queen, 1 worker, a few eggs.
tetramorium species: 1 queen, 40 workers, lots of brood
lasius flavus: 1 queen, a few eggs
myrmica rubra: 3 queens, 50 workers.
I'm only going to talk about my tetramorium sp. Because it is the best colonie i have got, but they can dig through their own nest, so i am going to have to provide them with bigger nests as the colonie gets bigger that i make myself. Otherwise to stop them digging through it i can put a coat of cement over it if i really need to.
1 queen
40 workers
25-40 eggs
20-25 larvae
around 30 pupa (about 10 coloured ones :D)
Lasius niger: 1 queen, 1 worker, a few eggs.
tetramorium species: 1 queen, 40 workers, lots of brood
lasius flavus: 1 queen, a few eggs
myrmica rubra: 3 queens, 50 workers.
I'm only going to talk about my tetramorium sp. Because it is the best colonie i have got, but they can dig through their own nest, so i am going to have to provide them with bigger nests as the colonie gets bigger that i make myself. Otherwise to stop them digging through it i can put a coat of cement over it if i really need to.
1 queen
40 workers
25-40 eggs
20-25 larvae
around 30 pupa (about 10 coloured ones :D)
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