Ants killing ants from their own colony?

[Celt8888]

Hi everyone!

Hope this is posted in the right place. So my five year old is obsessed with insects of all kinds. I got him an ant farm to let him watch how ants build tunnels, feed etc. We got one of these gel filled contraptions with about fifty ants that come in a straw you then put into the habitat (if you could call the sterile plastic gel filled container a habitat).

Anyway long story short, my son pointed out that after about an hour the ants had killed two of their own (quite literally tore them apart). He was very curious and I had no answer. Does anyone else have any inclination or idea why they might do this? Always try my best to give rational answers to rational questions but this one has had me stumped and frankly I'm tremendously curious myself.

Thought perhaps someone with much more knowledge might have an idea?

[AM1C39]

Most likelly they are not from the same colony some how. Gell farms are abselutelly terrible for ants and the ants you put in probably did not even have a queen.

[Antloverhuman]

Gel farms are toxic to ants which make them stressed and confused. The workers didn't have a queen and the gel that was toxic made them stress alot and thats why they probably killed each other. If you want him to see ants do cool things try to let him observe outside ants in your backyard or balcony. This will keep his curiosity up and also let him learn how to act around them( not just scream or stomp at them, but just look at them eating food and taking it back to the colony) but make sure those ants dont sting him or bite him. ( Some carpenter ants can have big supermajors that can really hardly bite him or scare him so if you see them just blow them away

[SYUTEO]

Just a quick note: The point of gel ant farms is to put workers in and watch them dig, they are not designed to house colonies with a queen, this is why many ant keepers don't use gel ant farms to house their colonies.. They are not the best for housing colonies with a queen. The workers killing each other may be because they are stressed or they actually come from different colonies.