Excavating Year Old Colonies of Leaf Cutters
Posted: 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.
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.