Does anyone else here keep ants? Its surprisingly easy, and fun!
This is my prize Crematogaster sp. colony. The largest ant to the left of the brood pile is the queen; I caught her in July and now she's raised a colony of about 40-50 workers.
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I used to when I was younger. Ants have always fascinated me. I used to live out in the middle of nowhere and had massive red ant mounds in the grass area and black ant colonies in the forest. I kept an enclosure with red ants and one with black ants. I messed it all up though cause I would swap their eggs out of curiosity. Turns out they'll take them in and they become part of the colony. Well after so long, both tanks had these mutant ants. Bigger that both species and were half red, half black and highly aggressive. I destroyed them and never rebuit a colony. A few years later, I was exploring the woods and came across a colony of these half breeds. I don't think they were from me, rather happened naturally as the black and red ants would often raid each other and steal eggs.
The best was when I was at the largest red ant mound and noticed a trail of them marching. I followed their trail for about a 10 minute walk til I got to the end. I looked ahead and saw black ants marching towards them. It's like they somehow setup a war on neutral ground. They clashed and duked it out for hours, neither side moving forward. After so long, they both just stopped fighting and went back to their colonies.. leaving countless dead ant bodies. Some got carried back, but they just left the majority of them. It was a mind blowing experience, one that made me forever consider ants to be the humans of the insect world.
FatherOfNyx
Level 7
Sep 26, 2018
1
I don't intentionally keep ants, but I have a dozen or so ant hills in my yard. I also have a dozen or so extremely itchy ant bites on my feet and ankles. Those little bastards are brutal.
dkp93
Level 8
Sep 21, 2018
0
They definitely can be, and I keep a healthy amount of acrylic between us for that reason.
I have always been fascinated by ants, but I have never kept them.They are so beautiful, I could spend hours watching them. I do have a lovley colony of dermestid beetles though 
VashtaNerada
Level 4
Sep 21, 2018
0
@Donotbelieve, this is the best I can do atm, its dark so its hard to see inside the tank, but here is a little group right in front
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