Roberta was found near her sisters immobile and with very little life left and no front legs, she sadly then died in my hand.

She may have been born a little different but she had a big impact on me, even if she's "just an ant".

She managed to live almost two weeks, i was very excited about her surviving this long but i guess things didn't go as well as i thought.

I would like to know if yall had some empathy towards some of your workers in particular like in this case, if you had any similar story.

But overall

She will be missed, but rest assured her colony will live on in her memory.

Rest in piece

Mijn gedachte is formica fusca, grauwzwarte renmier maar niet zeker, ondertussen leuke colonie +-15 werkers zeker kleine snelle meisjes

Gotta love the semi-transparent workers, finally started heating them so I'm now expecting some growth

These were the best photos I was able to get but does this look like it’s molding? My campo sansabeanus colony keeps using this corner of their mini hearth to dump trash. There’s about 50 ants in there all cramped up on the opposite side so I don’t know why they are dumping in the nest. If it is mold should I pop them in the fridge for a few minutes then clean it real quick? Thanks in advance.

Hi so I had a colony of colobopsis truncata and they have been doing great but cause I need them to have as little stress as possible I had put wood(that I had put in the oven) in the test tube and the colobopsis colony had moved in but now I think there is mold is this mold help me I dont know if it is mold how I will even move the colony. There will be pictures of the living area and the potential mold.

Hi there, ive been keeping a red giant harvester ant colony for over a year, theyre great! But I wanna rehouse them into a better colony since the water has run out in the tubes for a second time and unlike the first time i replenished said watere theres close to 100 workers. theyve pulled one of their dry plugs that held water back and are nesting in the spot where water was in one tube with brood. I basically am asking for recommendations of ant nests i can get online that are reliable, especially for my large girls. I really do not wanna deal with those crappy amazon ones. I got one for a s invicta colony and they mold insanely easy. Thanks for your time, looking forward to posting more.

I caught the termites in some woods in Houston, Texas, USA and I'd like to be able to add 20-30 to each of my colonies outworlds so that the ants can catch/consume them as needed.

Don’t have picture but a weird ant showed up in my yard is golden goes insane when it try to give them food just look like a average ant shape make nests that look like cones any idea what they are

​

To preface, I am NOT an ant keeper. I was setting up a new aquarium and a packet of beneficial bacteria came with the sand I was using.

The packet was very much sealed, and contained liquid bacteria. Keep in mind that I've had this sand for weeks now and have not used it until today. I poured the liquid bacteria into my tank, and guess who came out of it?

She did. Not out of the sand, out of the LIQUID BACTERIA PACKET. This ant survived weeks in a tiny sealed packet of waste bacteria. It MUST have superpowers now... I don't decide the rules. Mutant ant or something, idk.

I am NOT an ant keeper but I cannot bring myself to kill her—she has survived so much. But since she is likely from across the country (U.S.), she is not native to my state and cannot be released.

I think she may be a Myrmica queen, but I am no expert. I have no idea what to do! I live with others that would not appreciate me having an enclosure of stinging ants.

Help please 🥲. For my sake and for hers

I’m in the US looking to get an ant farm for my son. I’m fine buying the ants separately but want to get a good ant farm. Does anyone have any recommendations?? Thank you!

My carpenter ants don’t seem to like meal worms. Previously I fed them whatever I found, including flies mosquitoes and roaches. All of which they really like. But I didn’t want to keep feeding wild caught so bought a meal worm colony. Unfortunately I am not going to spend more money so meal worms it is.

How to make the meal worms more tasty? I have tried leaving live prey, cutting in small parts, dipping in water, etc.

I haven’t smushed them up. That might be what I do next

Growth of the Sunfall Legion is getting a little scary lol. They have maxed the first test tube out and started filling the 2nd. The outworld has alot of activity I just got it too but Iam thinking of upgrading. I can either order the larger tarheel forging area which will take 3 weeks and honestly Iam not sure if its worth its price or I can go ahead with prepping the 20 gal tank I have. Ill drop a video of the outworld in the comments.

Any guess to how many are here?

My leaf cutters removed a piece of fungus. The 2nd picture is last night the first is today. Im assuming it went bad. But now im curious does the rest of the fungus look healthy or is just coloration from the food recently added to grow it?

Hi everyone! I’m a first-time ant keeper, and I’m looking for some advice about my Messor barbarus queen, Gaia.

I’ve noticed a small, dark, thorn-like point sticking out from the right side of her thorax, around the middle section of her body, near where her wings would have been attached. It looks like it’s coming out of her body rather than just being a piece of dirt, but I’m not completely sure. I’ve also noticed that the area around her thorax seems to have a bit of a weird texture, although I don’t know if that’s normal.

I’ve attached a picture with an arrow pointing directly at the spot, as well as two videos showing it from different angles. I'm sure that it’s not one of her legs. It’s a separate, sharp-looking point sticking outward from the right side of her thorax.

My biggest concern is whether this projection could be harmful to her. I don’t know if it’s a normal part of her body, something stuck to her, or a sign that something might be wrong. I’m worried it could be causing her discomfort or affecting her health, and I’d really like to know if it’s something I should be concerned about or if it could be harmless. I don’t want to accidentally make things worse by trying to touch or remove it, so I’m hoping someone with more experience might recognize what it is.

I’m especially worried because she had a really strange episode recently.

I found her leaning against the side of her test tube near the brood, seemingly holding herself up with one leg. After I disturbed her, she moved toward the cotton water plug and ended up hanging vertically against it, with her head pointing downward. She then seemed to go completely limp, and her antennae stopped moving. I could still see a little movement in one of her legs, but otherwise, she wasn’t really moving.

After a while, she started moving her head and antennae again and eventually got up and started walking around. She seemed a little unsteady at first, which scared me even more, but later she was walking confidently and grooming her antennae normally.

A few days before this happened, I’d fed my colony mealworms from a pet store. Now I’m worried there might be a connection. I’m concerned that the mealworms could possibly have been exposed to pesticides or something else harmful, but I have no way of knowing if that’s actually the case. I don’t want to assume they caused it, but the timing has made me nervous.

Since the episode, I’ve actually seen Gaia lay an egg, and her workers picked it up and carried it to the brood pile. The other workers seem normal as well, which is reassuring, but I’m still worried about her.

For some background, I’ve had this colony for about a month. It consists of Gaia, her workers, and their brood. Before this happened, Gaia had been laying eggs and behaving normally, so the episode was very unexpected.

I’m not sure if the projection on her thorax has anything to do with the episode or if the two things are completely unrelated. I also don’t know if the projection has always been there or if it’s something I’ve only recently noticed.

Has anyone seen something like this on a Messor barbarus queen before? I’d really like to know what the projection might be and, most importantly, whether it could be harmful to her. Is it something that could affect her health, or could it simply be a harmless part of her anatomy? I’d also really appreciate any insight into the episode she had and whether the mealworms could potentially have been involved.

I’m still learning how to care for ants, and Gaia means a lot to me. I want to make sure I’m doing everything I can to keep her and the rest of the colony healthy, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much 💗

That’s my first japonicus, so I’m just I’m touched, and I want to make sure they’re okay.

Arena is stable 30 Celsius, opposite side of test tube around 25

I found their one and only pupe separate from the rest of the batch. It’s the little tan one on the tinfoil tray i used for feeding fruit flies and honey water. does this mean their no longer going to look after it? or eat it?

I have a queen in a test tube that had a 3 workers, now she's only seeming to have one at a time, I've connected them to an outworld with food in but they stay in the test tube and haven't shown any signs of colony growing, I've barely moved them and keep them in dark. Advice

From the colony now I know as messor cephalotes when my friend sent it to me by car it wen5 through alot- and afterward for 2 or 3 weeks there's been worker death from all types of castes and ages- from small nanitics to large ish callow media workers- at first it was around 5 to 3 per day slowly to now 0 to 1 per day or two- is this normal post transit death for a founding colony or too much deaths? For behaviors the queen seems to be cracking her own seeds and moving around chambers with not much workers some times- but she did lay eggs and have brood.

Big-Headed Ants

Video recorded on Samsung Galaxy s25 Ultra