Big Thread, Insectarium , Montreal Canada, Visit in July

[Acromyrmexbob]

This is a thread I have been planning to do for around a month now, since I spent time in Montreal at the Insectarium there. I had the pleasure of meeting Laurent, the person who has looked after their Atta for over 20 years. His ideas and techniques, many of them entirely new to the hobby, and all designed by him, are very interesting. Among them is his technique for expanding colonies into new containers in a way that lets you double the size of your colony at will. New ways of doing things, a different perspective on their management, really interesting stuff. But, before I get to this, heres some pictures of the Insectarium. After this, probably tomorrow, I will start to tell Laurents story.

The Insectarium is built on the 1976 Olympic Games site.


It is one of the olympic buildings.



And inside is amazingly well laid out with insect exhibits.



There are also similar exhibits in other buildings around the site including the old Velodrome



and even a Bonsai display!!



Finally for this post, they have black squirrels!



Sorry, this is an add on. The guys here are real artisits and their displays are epic! This is a section of the beetle display.

[Deansie26]

Great photos! Looks like a great place to visit, I'd have went for the bonsai nursery alone, would love to be better at that.
The beetle display is impressive, fantastic array of colour.

[Acromyrmexbob]

The Leaf Cutting Ant colony set up here is fantastic.

Before opening Laurent loads up the branches with Hibiscus and various other leaves which they, for the most part, grow on site.



The display looks good enough to go and see without the ants!!



We moved the new colony of ants in to their new display early in the morning.





and Laurent proceeded to use a technique I havent seen before. He gathered up a load of ants and tipped them carefully onto the walkway, about halfway between the nest and the food. He said that by the time they find their way back to the nest there will be a trail and the ants leaving the nest will find the food much much quicker.



A new one for me and one I will experiment with in subsequent set ups.

The actual tubs also only had the entrance hole. Laurent did not bother with ventillation on the top or through flow of air. I have noticed that the Leaf Cutters generally block other airholes up so this way of doing things seems to cater more for the ants requirements than satisfying what we believe they want.



Laurent opened one of the containers and they are certainly healthy ants, the fungus and the brood was very strong.



Laurent also thinks that leaves piled up outside the nest are not the result of over foraging by the ants, they are an attempt by the ants to create an area of high humidityas the leaves dry. Certainly there was an impressive pile of dried leaves in the display left by the previous colony which Laurent did not remove prior to placing the new colony in the display.



So the overall display was back up and running by the time I left. Looking amazing and all credit to an amazing Leaf Cutting Ant expert, Laurent.





By the way, I watched Laurent setting this up and he suddenly produced a huge bottle of bleach and poured it into the waterfilled moats around the exhibit. I was amazed!! When I asked him he said it keeps the display smelling nice and the water clear, stops things rotting in the water and prevents the ants escaping. It seemed to have no effect on the ants. Interesting.



I will publish many more of Laurents unique ideas including the way he expenads colonies.... all very interesting!

[Bitterlime]

That's really interesting and the setup looks good!

[Deansie26]

Andrew is the colony in the plastic boxes the one you took over? Where you growing it in the boxes prior to going over or something as they look like they been in the boxes a while and it looks very large. Photos can be deceiving I know but just not sure what's happened there.

[Jackie62]

Wow, great to see such a wonderful set-up and working so well. I also particularly like the beetles photo (such a diversity of species) and the black squirrel....we have them down here too!

[Acromyrmexbob]

Wow, great to see such a wonderful set-up and working so well. I also particularly like the beetles photo (such a diversity of species) and the black squirrel....we have them down here too!

Am I right in thinking that the Black Squirrels you have there are still the same species of Grey Squirrel, but a melanistic colour mutation. I was led to believe in Canada they are a different species. Not sure though.

[Jackie62]

Yes, we have a researcher here at Anglia Ruskin that has worked on the melanistic gene in this species. I think they are a sub-species of the grey squirrel.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/w ... ation.html

[Acromyrmexbob]

I think you can get £5 for every tail of the grey squirrel you manage to get hold of in order to cull them. (This thread has headed off in an unpredictable direction!)

[Jackie62]

Oh really? We have two freezers full of dead squirrels at work! Yes....it has deviated a little.....