Two deaths and a fake death
Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 10:28 am
So I'm still fairly new to ant keeping, but so far I have caught seven ant queens two have recently been producing workers! But I've lost two along the way so far.
Stubby actually survived much longer than I thought she would. She had three legs, only these legs were only one segment long. Hence the name, stubby. In addition she had no antennae, my guess she got in a fight with another queen. I expected her to likely die within a few hours, as she couldn't even walk, but I decided to give her a chance. To my surprise she survived about a week or two as I remember, and even had a good pile of eggs! Unfortunately she wasn't able to take care of herself or her eggs well enough and passed away. But she fought longer than anyone expected.
Then there was Silver, she was generally agitated a lot and didn't much care about her eggs. But then one day I found her standing motionless, clamped down on the cotton ball in her test tube. . . With greyish blue-green mold bursting out of her exoskeleton. I didn't wait to see if it grew a mushroom like in the pictures. Parasitic molds like that make me feel sick just by thinking about them.
And finally, Bronze. So, Huge amounts of mold grew in her test tube, and at the time she had larva before any of my other queens, so I was hopeful about her, but I didn't want the little ones to be around so much mold and have no clean water. So I tried to move them to a new, clean test tube. But unintentionally the sun was shining right on the test tube, which caused it to very quickly over heat. In a matter of minutes she was flailing her limbs around and throwing up. Shortly after she flipped onto her back and curled up. Dead. Or so I thought. I rushed her into the shade and was devastated.
I was still in shock about the whole situation so I put off cleaning out the test tube for a few days. And finally when I went to clean it out. . . She was alive! Partly paralyzed! But alive! I quickly got her into a new clean test tube (Safely this time) and waited. Over time she regained control over her paralyzed limbs, aside from the front two. But after many weeks she got those back too and is back to moving properly. However she's yet to lay new eggs. I've fed her, as I'm sure this whole mess cost her a lot of resources. I intend to keep her for as long as I can. Whether she lays eggs or not I will try to make things comfortable for her.
Stubby actually survived much longer than I thought she would. She had three legs, only these legs were only one segment long. Hence the name, stubby. In addition she had no antennae, my guess she got in a fight with another queen. I expected her to likely die within a few hours, as she couldn't even walk, but I decided to give her a chance. To my surprise she survived about a week or two as I remember, and even had a good pile of eggs! Unfortunately she wasn't able to take care of herself or her eggs well enough and passed away. But she fought longer than anyone expected.
Then there was Silver, she was generally agitated a lot and didn't much care about her eggs. But then one day I found her standing motionless, clamped down on the cotton ball in her test tube. . . With greyish blue-green mold bursting out of her exoskeleton. I didn't wait to see if it grew a mushroom like in the pictures. Parasitic molds like that make me feel sick just by thinking about them.
And finally, Bronze. So, Huge amounts of mold grew in her test tube, and at the time she had larva before any of my other queens, so I was hopeful about her, but I didn't want the little ones to be around so much mold and have no clean water. So I tried to move them to a new, clean test tube. But unintentionally the sun was shining right on the test tube, which caused it to very quickly over heat. In a matter of minutes she was flailing her limbs around and throwing up. Shortly after she flipped onto her back and curled up. Dead. Or so I thought. I rushed her into the shade and was devastated.
I was still in shock about the whole situation so I put off cleaning out the test tube for a few days. And finally when I went to clean it out. . . She was alive! Partly paralyzed! But alive! I quickly got her into a new clean test tube (Safely this time) and waited. Over time she regained control over her paralyzed limbs, aside from the front two. But after many weeks she got those back too and is back to moving properly. However she's yet to lay new eggs. I've fed her, as I'm sure this whole mess cost her a lot of resources. I intend to keep her for as long as I can. Whether she lays eggs or not I will try to make things comfortable for her.
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