Should I feed living food to my ants for science? Lasius Niger.

[Hunter36o]

Okay so I have been talking about this for a while on and off this forum. The topic of said discussion is the possibility that Lasius Niger have to ability to sting or spray acid. This comes purely from observation and not hear say.

So the reason I need everyone's opinion on the matter is because normally I will not feed any living creature to ants. There really is no need for it. But now, there kind of is??? I have a few darkling beetles and the last few weeks or more the eggs have been hatching away so I also have a tone of superworms of various sizes.
I'm thinking maybe for science and for no other reason I may throw a living baby superworm in the mix to see how my ants actually react to a possible hostile situation. If I do this the whole event will be recorded.

What do you guys think we should do????

[Jayelem]

Don’t.

[ClashOwenBash]

I don't know about mealworms, Lasius in my experience can't get through the exoskeleton. I have always cut them open before.

[TheRealAntMan]

Superworms would be too large and too tiring for a small colony of Lasius to kill. Better to try soft-bodied Drosophila or pinhead crickets.

[Hunter36o]

I was originally thinking about using one of the smaller worms but looking at them yesterday I had already figured their exoskeleton would be too hard.
It will still be some time before I could even attempt this, if I even do because they are mostly just nanitics in the ranks and that just seemed too risky straight off the bat. If I am going to do it however I want to use something that is softish and not going to have the ability to take out a few ants in the process. The ants so come first after all.
I'm still of two minds about this but documented footage could help get some answers from someone more experienced in the study of ants. It's just confusing and somewhat frustrating to always see or hear people say Lasius Niger do not possess a stinger or have the capability to spray acid. Yet I'm sitting here staring at my ants thinking "please tell that to my Lasius Nigers as I do not think they got the memo" And the the queen was confirmed as Lasius Niger since I got her and got it confirmed here

[joyjoy22]

I don't think that it's a good idea to feed ants with a living animal, I know for a fact that they do eat dead insects but not to a moving worm.

[Hunter36o]

Actually in the wild the ants will take on worms if the opportunity arises. Superworms would just have a hard exoskeleton that my native ants would not be used to. Which is why I'd prefer to use something softer. Normally I'd prekill all food of its not already frozen, letting my ants take the prize without the fight.
This is not a situation where I want to do it purely for fun, the idea somewhat scares me as I do not want to hurt my colony's numbers but I have read so much on Lasius Niger that they cannot spray acid even tho they are part of the sub family that does spray acid. Yet my ants clearly contradict this fact. Now either my ants are ideots that do not realise they cannot spray, all the research on Lasius Niger has been inaccurate or evolution has come into play and Lasius Nigers have adapted to newer environments with more challenging pray and predators causing them to evolve rather then roll over and die out. Either way, the posture they use is as clear as day and they are doing something along the lines of spraying acid. I do not think it's a stinger anymore but only because of their sub family, I could he wrong on that point tho.