Excavating Year Old Colonies of Leaf Cutters

Post here for any notes or records of sightings in the wild. Behaviour, nuptial flights etc, everything about these ants from the Tropics!
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Acromyrmexbob
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Excavating Year Old Colonies of Leaf Cutters

Post by Acromyrmexbob » Mon May 30, 2016 7:42 pm

The following is taken from Randy Morgans (of Cincinnatti Zoo) excellent paper from 2001, Captive Management of Atta (see 'Scientific Papers' in Research Section of Forum)

Year-old colonies consist of a single fungus garden (about 4-6 cm diam) often located 10-20 cm below ground surface in a small spherical cavity (Fig Cool. The queen usually clings to the side or top of the fungus garden (Fig 9), and the worker population might be anywhere from a few dozen to perhaps a 100 or more individuals. Generally only minors and medias, but no major workers, are present.

Excavating Year-old Colonies: A shovel is used to dig a roughly 25 cm deep trench just to one side of the nest entrance. Then a hand trowel is employed to carefully scrape away the soil laterally, eventually exposing the fungus garden chamber (Fig Cool. Paper towels are formed into an appropriately-sized padded nest cavity within a small plastic field container, and slightly moistened to provide humidity for the garden. A tablespoon serves to gently lift out the fragile garden and resident ants, and to transfer all to the field container (Fig 9). A small hand-held aspirator (Table 1) is often used to collect additional workers that may have left the nest because of disturbance, particularly for smaller colony populations. If a garden accidentally breaks apart during collection, it is roughly pieced together in the field container and will be repaired by the workers. Container lids have a few tiny puncture holes for air exchange. Colonies may be held in field containers for up to a week or more, and are offered a few fresh leaf pieces daily. Once reaching the Insectarium they are transferred into permanent laboratory housing.

This seems like good basic advice for anyone in the field in an area where Leaf Cutters occur.

Ieatflys
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Re: Excavating Year Old Colonies of Leaf Cutters

Post by Ieatflys » Thu Jun 02, 2016 9:04 pm

this is excellent advice!! i have come across it many times and nothing else compares. i have been searching for guides or suggestions as to locating colonies and have found none other than the information that you have given me.

thanks :D

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Acromyrmexbob
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Re: Excavating Year Old Colonies of Leaf Cutters

Post by Acromyrmexbob » Thu Jun 02, 2016 9:15 pm

Randy Morgan was actually in Trinidad collecting during my first ever trip back 25 years ago. Actually there are one or two points that are wrong. It is not good advice to suggest that you place damp paper towels in the container. Randy and the team at Cincinnatti Zoo have not collected on the scale that I have over the years. The trouble with paper towels, especially damp ones, is that the fungus sitting on the towels causes them to absorb waste from the fungus and this can very often cause decomposition and a terrible smell of ammonia which will wipe out all of the fungus overnight. The correct advice is not to place anything at all in the container beside the fungus and ants. This might seem counter intuitive but it is better practice. The fungus does not need damp tissue, the humidity within the small chamber will easily reach mid 90% just from the presence of the fungus and ants. The container should not be shaken or rattled around so the fungus will not need padded within the container. Just simply place the fungus into the bare dry container and make sure there are a few small airholes (no more than 6) in the tub.

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