Leaf Cutting Ant Display at Dr Beynon's Bug Farm

Pictures and reports of colonies on show around the world
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Acromyrmexbob
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Leaf Cutting Ant Display at Dr Beynon's Bug Farm

Post by Acromyrmexbob » Wed Dec 02, 2015 9:30 pm

We were recently asked to install a display at a brand new insect zoo in Wales, about as far as you can go into Wales without getting wet. We arrived to build it in horrendous weather. It was cold and raining and very windy. Just perfect Welsh weather. Dr Beynon is a specialist based at Oxford University on Dung Beetles. She has opened a fascinating insect zoo on land and a farm she owns and is not only exhibiting inverts here for the public but also carrying on research and breeding of food insects. She has also promised to join this forum soon so she should post some updates on what I am putting here!

The nest tank and feeding table are our standard models. There was a twist though. Sarah organised the tanks to be built by a local company and , unbeknown to us, they built them in toughened glass. When we arrived we started to drill the panel for the pipe only for the tank to explode (you can't drill toughened glass!!) So we had to perform a repair there and then. Luckily we had spare glass with us for this very possibility!

So three hours later we installed the ants and everything is doing fine. Here are one or two pictures of the setup.

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The square tank shown in the picture above is filled with water and heated so there is a core heat source for the colony. Tey will move the fungus garden either closer towards the heat source or further away, depending on their preference.

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