Creepy crawlies

(on all photos, click for bigger)

My acromyrmex octospinosus colony has really taken off, and it's growing well. Their favourite "foods" are orange pith, curly kale, and dandelion leaves.


One of the girls taking some kale home.


In the garden.




A random spider I found.


Close-up showing the eyes ....

I love the jaws on this spider.

Whoo! Your acromyrmex are pokey! The ones my ant friends (myrmecologists) keep in their lab are not so pokey as that. They just have our local sonoran desert species, whichever that one is. They are kind of difficult to keep around here; it's difficult to maintain the proper humidity in the fungus chamber. What does your set-up look like? I've got my seed-harvester colony (Messor pergandei) back in a CD case. I put them in a commercial ant farm frame, and they just hid at the bottom all the time--the one place you can't see them.

The octospinosus are a particularly small species with no soldiers and they have relatively small colony sizes - that's why we went for them, easier to keep. I'd like to get some Atta in the future though, but their colonies get so big that I want to wait until I move house so we don't have to move with the giant ant colony in tow!

At the momen the acromyrmex are in a tank we bought from a guy who specialises in ants. It is a three foot tank, with two raised glass platforms in the base. When the colony was small we had the colony in a plastic box on one platform and put the food on the other, with a stick between them to get from one to the other, and the base filled with water to prevent escapees.

Now the colony's bigger, the entire tank is filled with soil and ants, and we have the moat at the top of the tank filled with water so they can't get out unless I accidentally put something on top of the tank for them to climb over

We see them pretty much all the time as they're out and about bringing food back to the nest. They like orange pith and dandelions the best, though they're really enjoying Sugar Puffs at the moment.

Would that be a woodlice spider? I'm not that good at the arachnid ID...or snake morphs come to that...LOL

No idea what type of spider it is, I rescued it from the jaws of my cat

Fabulous colony! I love insects. When I was visiting Victoria Island B.C. a few years ago I got the chance to visit their Insect Zoo. It was the best zoo experience ever. I wish we had something similar here in Chicago. My husband half teases that I should start one. I'm tempted... I'd love to see a pic of the whole setup.
Thanks for sharing.
Terri

those are some awsome pics! you must be a pro!