Acromyrmex Versicolor Journal

Let everyone see the story of your colony(ies) over time. Pictures, developments, success and failures, what works / what doesn't, and your plans for expansion as time goes by!
Kalidas
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Re: Acromyrmex Versicolor Journal

Post by Kalidas » Sat Nov 10, 2018 4:44 pm

Honestly not sure... Hard to check inside a test tube. I do have the temp/humidity guage on the test tube as close as I can get to the fungus and at least around there the temp stays between 75 and 80 pretty consistently. Not sure about the humidity but I'm sure it's good because I can see condensation at times which should be a good sign of high humidity.

Yeah maybe, I mean it had grown roughly two days ago as you can maybe see in the pictures it was just that small bowl like shape and now has this almost tower like structure on top(so now it looks like a ladel) growing up towards the top of the test tube. It started out really thin but is now pretty thick and strong. But since then no growth, maybe the orange is just from the quinua? The Quinua has a bright orange color under the white of the seed . I was worried a while back about the black all around the edge and that turned out to be fine and turned white in about 3 or more days... And in that time she wasn't adding substrate either. So maybe it's just the food stuff being added and now we're waiting for new fungal buds to bloom... I hope that's the case at least

Kalidas
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Re: Acromyrmex Versicolor Journal

Post by Kalidas » Sun Nov 11, 2018 11:42 pm

Good news everyone(any of you ever watch Futurama?), The fungus is looking a lot healthier. Most of the orange is covered in white hairs and I even see new white fluff balls.

Image as you can see the orange is barely noticeable anymore.

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Close up, as you can see the fungus is looking much better.

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She's very curious.

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I like big butts and I can not lie.

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Backend of the fungus. Seriously no matter what position I took the pictures she was there to stare at me.

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And here is the REALLY good news. More eggs! I count six!

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Yup still eggs.

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Her close up.

So yeah fungus is looking much better, there's new eggs, and she looks busy and healthy as ever. Only issue is now I can't find those two larvae she had anymore. I'm hoping they are just some place on the fungus that I can't see, she liked to move them around a lot.

Kalidas
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Re: Acromyrmex Versicolor Journal

Post by Kalidas » Tue Oct 15, 2019 10:12 pm

Wow haven't been on here in a while.

Sadly the queens didnt make it.

Had one queen doing pretty well her fungus was growing ahe had brood, but the larvae never made it to the pupae stage and one day her fungus turned orange and died, still not entirely sure what I did wrong.

I won't lie I still want to give these ants another try one day in the future. Maybe next year if I am able.

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Acromyrmexbob
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Re: Acromyrmex Versicolor Journal

Post by Acromyrmexbob » Fri Oct 18, 2019 8:40 am

That is a shame. Rearing queens is actually very hard with leaf cutters. Everythnig has to be right. Youn should definitely try again. Would be great to get it right. Interested in hearing when you do!

Kalidas
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Re: Acromyrmex Versicolor Journal

Post by Kalidas » Sat Oct 19, 2019 1:03 am

Acromyrmexbob wrote:
Fri Oct 18, 2019 8:40 am
That is a shame. Rearing queens is actually very hard with leaf cutters. Everythnig has to be right. Youn should definitely try again. Would be great to get it right. Interested in hearing when you do!
Yeah I was really discouraged by it all. Didn't do any anting the entire year after that, which sucks because it means I missed the nuptial flights this year.

Which extra sucks because my car broke down and I had to trash it so I hope I get a new car so I can go to the flights next year. I think I will take that time to prep and create the special formicarium idea I had for a leaf cutter colony.

Luckily I have a guy in the town where I live that sells ants. I'm gonna buy a neat ant queen from him, a rare species of Camponotus. Camponotus US-CA-02 this actually the first year anyone has caught any of these queens at all, ever. So this will be exciting

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Acromyrmexbob
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Re: Acromyrmex Versicolor Journal

Post by Acromyrmexbob » Tue Oct 22, 2019 4:14 pm

Thats interesting. You should definitely try to get to the flights. I am looking for a source of queen leaf cutters from your area. But would need to be good quantity, I would be coming from uK.

Kalidas
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Re: Acromyrmex Versicolor Journal

Post by Kalidas » Tue Oct 22, 2019 10:19 pm

Acromyrmexbob wrote:
Tue Oct 22, 2019 4:14 pm
Thats interesting. You should definitely try to get to the flights. I am looking for a source of queen leaf cutters from your area. But would need to be good quantity, I would be coming from uK.
Not sure how that would work since we have laws in the U.S against moving queens across state borders, no idea how that applies to moving them to another country

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Acromyrmexbob
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Re: Acromyrmex Versicolor Journal

Post by Acromyrmexbob » Wed Oct 23, 2019 10:09 am

I have all of the paperwork for US. I never move anything without permits. Its quite funny, every week I get people from China and countries where importing ants is illegal, asking me to send leaf cutters. Theres lots of money on offer. But because 90% of my business is in supplying public displays for zoos around the world, it would be a disaster for me to do it and get caught. Apart from the fact that I dont think its right! So no worries, all paperwork in place, it would all be legal.

Kalidas
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Re: Acromyrmex Versicolor Journal

Post by Kalidas » Wed Oct 23, 2019 5:35 pm

I won't lie that sounds pretty awesome. And I would totally be willing to help you out.

Now here is where I shoot myself in the foot lol.
You should go to Formiculture.com and talk with Dspdrew he is the site admin. He and I actually live in the same exact city. He has been doing this a LOT longer than I have, he has a LOT more experience than I do, and is capable of housing and caring for more ants than I am.

Technically I could care for a lot of ants because I live with ym grandparents and their house but I only have a small location to keep my ants in because well nobody else butme likes them lol.

So really Drew would be your best bet. He's extremely knowledgeable and has been caring for Acromyrmex Versicolor and other SoCal ants for a very long time.

Now this is no promise he will help. He and pretty much everyone else on the forums holds to the rule of keeping ants within about 300 miles from where you live so we will see.

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Acromyrmexbob
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Re: Acromyrmex Versicolor Journal

Post by Acromyrmexbob » Wed Oct 23, 2019 6:51 pm

Thanks for that. I suppose that conversation should have been PM'd rather than here but very useful! I will ask him.

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