Leaf Cutting Ant Forum

Great video. I think you are some way off soldiers. The pupa you pointed out in the film is very much a sub major. I would be surprised if you saw any majors within next 6 months or so. You can tell majors because they are huge, hairy and only are produced when there are lots of resources to feed them. At this stage every ant that ecloses is utilised for cutting but will defend also of needed. Soldiers are a luxury which they simply cannot afford until later. Normally a garden the size of a large orange will be reached before large majors appear. Looking amazing though, hoping to get Atta sexdens within next month or so.

Yeah, not the really big major but the smaller ones, but still a major haha. I can't see that big pupae anymore, they probably placed it in a safer place. How you get these kind of colonies outside their natural environment?

Can you explain your question, dont understand it?

I don't know exactly but I think you are from Europe, and there's no leafcutter ant's there, so how you get your queens?

Well, my colonies come from Trinidad. I bring many colonies in from there and sell them all over Europe. Must be nice to live where you find them.

Update 03-17-17

Moving the colony!!
Finally after a quite long time I'm updating the journal again. The ants keep doing great, and all this time I've been preparing their new formicarium, it was hard to place the plaster in the glass box and then level it without making a big mess, but I managed to do a good job(in my opinion).
The glass started making noises and really scared me, the reaction of the plaster expanding and getting hard made it very hot. I was afraid that the glass would crack, or the silicone would not be enough to hold it, so I placed some stuff to help.



And here is the final result:



I recorded a cool video of me moving the colony, took me quite some time to prepare it and edit it so I hope you all like the video.

OBS: I placed some portuguese subtitles, if they are turned on you can disable them on youtube.

Great fun.. nice one...

What are the tubes for coming off the lids?

Also, how do you/will you access the units for feeding etc.? Are you using a barrier (fluon or oil) of some sort in the units?

Those tubes coming out are for ventilation. I'm not using a barrier at the moment, since it's not needed, but if I need I'll have to do some testing to see which ones available for me are more effective.
I hope that I don't need to use barriers for them, usually when there's no food in the outworld they don't keep looking around too much.

You should be fine for a bit as you say. I look forward to seeing it develop. Keep us posted

I saw this on Facebook I was one that said about putting leafs close for them to kick start so they don't have go long way to get them