As I watched the ants swarm like they were performing a massive spiny ant rain dance,
around their pretty awesome, perfectly camouflaged moss nest, I felt super lucky that we finally had
a spiny ant colony acting exactly like they would have in the wild.
It seems the Blades of Midas, our beloved golden spiny ant colony
is on their road to glory, and you better believe I’ll be documenting their continued progress,
as their awesome moss nest and colony expands more and more over time.
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So it’s been a week since I realized I was totally trolled by my pet spiny ant colony, and
that my ants had secretly been constructing this awesome moss nest within their terrarium without
me knowing. I say without me knowing, because in case you didn’t see last week’s episode,
I had actually thought my spiny ant colony had died out and weren’t adapting well to captivity,
but really, the ants had simply pieced together a camouflaged fortress using sphagnum moss
and other debris collected from their terrarium, and moved into there! Those sneaky and awesome
bastards! Love it! I’ll be getting more into the science of their moss ball nest in a bit,
but today, I’ll be updating you guys on what life is like for our beloved spiny ants,
whom we call the Blades of Midas, living in and around their moss nest
and in their terrarium we made, that we call Polyrhaxia. Let’s enter their world now, shall we?
It seems today is a very busy day in Polyrhaxia. You can see the Blades of Midas all going about
their business as usual! Some ants are busy looking for food, some ants are carrying the dead,
and some ants are doing who knows what?
But let’s head straight to the moss ball nest! This is the Blades of Midas’ main fortress!
So if you’re new to these spiny ants, they belong to the genus Polyrhachis, a very diverse
genus of ant that are characterized by unique body spines. The Blades of Midas here are a species of
Polyrhachis ant with these sharp spines on their back and waist. They also sport a sort of shiny
gold colour when the light hits their bodies right. Now these ants don’t have stingers,
but they do have the ability to shoot formic acid which these ants that you see here, guarding the
surface of their moss nest, are prepared to do in an instant. They can spring into action and
alarm the colony inside to come swarming out if an emergency were to arise and they are aggressive!
In terms of where the nest openings are, I spotted four entrances. There’s one here… here… here…
and here in this wooden cavity.
But unlike some other ant nests of other ant species, the entrances to their moss nest are
very discreet, and not obvious at all! In fact, their entire nest is all about being unnoticed.
Looking at the moss nest from afar, it’s easy to appreciate how these ants rely on camouflage
to conceal themselves from potential predators or enemies. Again, they completely constructed
this nest right under my nose, without me knowing, despite me watching them in this tank every day!
Now these ants you see here, hanging around outside the moss nest are all workers,
but inside the nest are several queens, who are larger and who lay all the eggs to keep the colony
growing. Now, though I don’t exactly have a way to film inside the nest at the moment, I did go back
to old footage of our colony here and played where’s waldo for a bit, and low and behold,
I spotted one of the queens. Do you see her? She’s right there!
So the queens look very similar to the workers and if you’re not used to spotting queen ants
in an ant colony, it’s easy to miss them. But this species of spiny ants is cool
in that they are known as polygynous, meaning they can have multiple egg-laying queens per colony.
Most other ant colonies only have 1 egg-laying queen ant per colony.
Having many queens in an ant colony is advantageous in nature because it means
your colony can grow faster since you have more than one queen laying eggs, and in the ant world,
the quicker and larger your ant colony can grow, the greater chances of success.
But it does seem like our spiny ants are doing pretty awesome. Now last week,
I inadvertently tore a hole into their moss nest, when I discovered their nest under one of
their test tubes. The hole I made was long and the ants immediately began to repair it. Well,
over night they sealed that hole up pretty quick!
The way they stick all this moss and debris together is through silk,
produced by their larvae. Yup, ant child labour built this entire nest.
It’s why in ant science, spiny ants are also considered lesser weaver ants,
due to the idea of the ants weave together debris to make their nests.
But having to produce all the silk needed to construct these architectural wonders,
as well as for the queens to amass more babies, requires some serious protein.
Here you’ll see some ants working on a prey insect they stumbled upon in Polyrhaxia. I give these
ants a variety of prey items including roaches, superworms, and other insects I’ll catch from a
nearby forest that I know doesn’t have pesticides. All the valuable protein from these prey insects
is fed to the queen who lays more eggs, and fed to the larvae who produce the vital-glue that holds
their moss nest together. Protein is a crucial dietary element to the spiny ant lifestyle!
But the ants also need the energy to construct the nest, which is not easy business,
as well as power their everyday activities so I always provide them a test tube of sugar water
every day. They go through an entire test tube of sugar water in a few days. In the wild,
these ants would be collecting their sugar from honeydew milked from plant insects, but I’m
happy the Blades of Midas have adapted to simply collecting their sweets from a test tube for now.
Perhaps in the future when I move this colony into a larger setup,
I can try to incorporate a plant with plant insects on them
so the ants can farm their own sugary food, as they would in the wild. Wouldn’t that be cool?
Having this colony of spiny ants is truly a dream! I’ve tried keeping spiny ants in the past,
but haven’t had luck getting them to thrive and build their amazing nests, but seeing the Blades
of Midas now living in Polyrhaxia is just so satisfying and an ultimate dream come true. If
you’re like me and just love ant watching, and would like to continue ant watching the Blades
of Midas to the sounds of some relaxing music, check out the hidden video I will place here.
Also, if you would like to get into this amazing hobby of ant keeping, be sure to visit our website
at antscanada.com, pick up our ant keeping handbook e-book, and feel free to choose from
any of our easy to use ant farm starter kits. You can also buy live ant colonies through the site.
Until the next time we visit our Blades of Midas in Polyrhaxia, thank you all for watching
and supporting the ants. It’s ant love forever!