Building an Ant Farm: Journey with Trap Jaw Ants

Table of Contents

• The Beginning: A New Queen
• Feeding the Colony
• Growing the Colony
• Building a New Home
• Adapting to Their New Home
• Creating Outworlds
• The Ups and Downs
• The Final Day
• FAQ

The Beginning: A New Queen

It all started with this queen ant. Alone and needing to care for her eggs, I watched as the first worker was born. Trap-jaw ants are fascinating; they have massive mandibles designed to cut prey in half, and the workers are nearly the same size as the queens!

Feeding the Colony

In the ant world, the workers serve the queen and do almost everything for her. To accelerate the growth of my colony, I decided to feed them. Starting with just a single drop of honey, I slid it into the tube. Almost instantly, the worker ant went to investigate!

The worker communicated with the queen by rubbing her antennae against the queen's. After receiving the go-ahead, she returned to the honey, but instead of eating it, she knocked the plate over, soaking the honey into the sand. It turns out the queen would regurgitate body tissues to feed the workers at this early stage.

Growing the Colony

As more workers hatched, their roles became apparent. Two stayed close to the queen while the others guarded the eggs. With four workers now, I thought they might accept my food offerings. This time, I upped the ante and introduced live prey: flightless fruit flies!

The first worker noticed the fly, snapped at it, but missed. Soon, all the workers were on high alert. A minute later, one successfully took the fly down and stored it for later. With some food now available, the colony continued to grow, but the tube was getting cramped!

Building a New Home

Realising they needed more space, I fashioned a new ant nest from a brick. Using a hammer and chisel, I created multiple crevices for the ants to store eggs, food, and trash. After painting it, I added a clear acrylic sheet to keep humidity just right.

Once the nest was ready, I connected it to the tube. Almost instantly, one brave worker ventured down the tube to explore the new digs. To entice the colony to move, I plugged in some sugar water and replaced the acrylic sheet with a red one to keep it dark inside.

Adapting to Their New Home

After some time, all the ants had made the move. They were very active and found a cozy spot for the queen and her eggs. Leaving them for ten days, I returned to find the colony functioning smoothly. It was time to build them an outworld for food hunting!

Creating Outworlds

The first outworld was a simple desert setup with orange sand, rocks, and a little cactus. After applying fluon to prevent escapes, I connected it to the nest. My goal was to test the trap-jaw mandibles against larger prey.

Next, I introduced a cricket to see how the ants would react. The trap-jaw ants lunged at the cricket but missed several times. Eventually, one worker lined up a perfect shot and successfully took down the cricket, storing it for food.

The Ups and Downs

As the days passed, I monitored the colony's growth. By day ninety-seven, there were twelve workers, but I noticed one had died—likely one of the founding workers. Despite this, the colony thrived, and I decided to build them another outworld.

The Final Day

On day one hundred, I returned to find just one ant in the nest. Confused, I searched the outworlds but found no ants. Eventually, I discovered a tiny gap under the acrylic sheet that allowed them all to escape overnight, except for the queen!

This was unexpected! I had plans for day one hundred, but instead, I had to scoop the queen up and place her into a new test tube. She had successfully raised a colony once, and I was hopeful she could do it again. Time to reset the day counter and try again!