Atta Mexicana Trouble!
Moderator: ooper01
- AntsMexico
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sun Jun 30, 2019 5:24 pm
- Location: Mexico
Atta Mexicana Trouble!
Hello!
I’m new to ant keeping and I’ve been having trouble with my ant colony. In fact, I’m worried they will all die out
A little bit of background info: I captured my Atta Mexicana colony in September, and up to around 2 weeks ago everything was relatively fine. At that point they were around 40 ants or so in the colony. But everything changed when they all started dying out of the blue; my colony went from those 40 ants to just 7 in a couple of days, and now as far as I can tell there’s only 2 ants and the queen, and they are no longer picking up the corpses of the deceased ants.
As far as the setup goes, I keep my ants in a DIY 2 container setup. The temperature varies from 24.6 to 26 degrees Celsius, and the humidity usually varies from 91% up to 99%. I feed my ants lime leaves, almonds, strawberry leaves, and honey. I noticed they were very picky, and they wouldn’t eat any kinds of fresh fruit, just what I mentioned above.
Anyways, I do not know what to do at this point, is there any “troubleshooting” that I can do to figure out what’s going on with the ants and how to save them?
Thanks!
I’m new to ant keeping and I’ve been having trouble with my ant colony. In fact, I’m worried they will all die out
A little bit of background info: I captured my Atta Mexicana colony in September, and up to around 2 weeks ago everything was relatively fine. At that point they were around 40 ants or so in the colony. But everything changed when they all started dying out of the blue; my colony went from those 40 ants to just 7 in a couple of days, and now as far as I can tell there’s only 2 ants and the queen, and they are no longer picking up the corpses of the deceased ants.
As far as the setup goes, I keep my ants in a DIY 2 container setup. The temperature varies from 24.6 to 26 degrees Celsius, and the humidity usually varies from 91% up to 99%. I feed my ants lime leaves, almonds, strawberry leaves, and honey. I noticed they were very picky, and they wouldn’t eat any kinds of fresh fruit, just what I mentioned above.
Anyways, I do not know what to do at this point, is there any “troubleshooting” that I can do to figure out what’s going on with the ants and how to save them?
Thanks!
Keeper Of:
1x Atta Mexicana (Deceased )
1x Atta Mexicana (Deceased )
- AntsMexico
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sun Jun 30, 2019 5:24 pm
- Location: Mexico
Re: Atta Mexicana Trouble!
Edit 1: All my worker ants have died and now only the queen remains. I’ve also noticed the queen is acting strange; she usually cares for her brood and fungus constantly but now she’s barely paying any attention to them. She also has not laid any eggs recently as far as I can tell. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Keeper Of:
1x Atta Mexicana (Deceased )
1x Atta Mexicana (Deceased )
Re: Atta Mexicana Trouble!
Did she had any pupae right now?
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- AntsMexico
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sun Jun 30, 2019 5:24 pm
- Location: Mexico
Re: Atta Mexicana Trouble!
Yes! She actually has some pupae but she stopped tending for them a few days back. As a matter of fact she now spends most of the time at a distance of the fungus (and pupae inside of it for that matter), barely moving.
Keeper Of:
1x Atta Mexicana (Deceased )
1x Atta Mexicana (Deceased )
Re: Atta Mexicana Trouble!
Maybe she needs to get some leaves to continue growing her fungus, try putting other kinds of leaves in for her.AntsMexico wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2019 9:02 amYes! She actually has some pupae but she stopped tending for them a few days back. As a matter of fact she now spends most of the time at a distance of the fungus (and pupae inside of it for that matter), barely moving.
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- AntsMexico
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sun Jun 30, 2019 5:24 pm
- Location: Mexico
Re: Atta Mexicana Trouble!
Thank you for the help! Unfortunately I did try that and it did not work; my queen ended up dying too. ATM I’m trying to figure out what went wrong to make sure that I don’t make the same mistake(s) in the future. In any case I really appreciate the help!SYUTEO wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2019 1:21 amMaybe she needs to get some leaves to continue growing her fungus, try putting other kinds of leaves in for her.AntsMexico wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2019 9:02 amYes! She actually has some pupae but she stopped tending for them a few days back. As a matter of fact she now spends most of the time at a distance of the fungus (and pupae inside of it for that matter), barely moving.
Keeper Of:
1x Atta Mexicana (Deceased )
1x Atta Mexicana (Deceased )
Re: Atta Mexicana Trouble!
Im sorry to hear about what happened to your queen but hopefully you can catch new queens next year and the reason why your queen died was probably due to winter season so perhaps she is just hibernating but don't throw your queen away and see what happens in spring
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