Well, I know that all three of you, dear readers, have been eagerly waiting to hear the latest news about (1) the ant farm that I bought as a birdday gift for myself and (2) the ongoing power bill drama with the unreasonable coneheads at ConEdison.
Good news first; the ant farm arrived today (yippee), sans ants (boo). The farm itself is smaller than I imagined it would be, which makes me wonder if this size discrepancy is directly related to the size of my eagerness to be an ant aunt?
I know this sounds silly but I am really disappointed by the lack of ants: I wanted to spend the evening watching them, but no, I have to purchase them separately, or I have to raid an existing ant colony in the wilds of Central Park (can I get arrested for stealing wildlife from a public park?). Interestingly, the instructions warn me against the dangers of collecting army ants or fire ants for my little blue goo-filled farm. Well, gee, where's the fun in watching safe ants?
This ant farm is illuminated. I purchased the illuminated ant farm because, at the time, I thought I would keep it next to my bed so I could watch the ants when I can't sleep very well, which is most nights anymore. And this leads me into my second topic for the evening; one of the reasons that I don't sleep very well at night is due to my power bill drama. Since the coneheads just sent me another preposterous power bill a couple days ago, I am wondering about my wisdom getting an illuminated ant farm: if one new powersaver refrigerator consumes $838 of electricity per month, wouldn't you guess that an ant farm, regardless of how teensy its light is, consumes close to $100 per month? But maybe I can train my future ants to run on a wheel like a hamster so they can generate electricity to power my refrigerator?
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I like the way the notes tell you not to put ants of different kinds in there because they'll duke it out to the death...
i thought that was funny, too. they also describe a variety of ant species that no one would ever be able to get their hands on. for example, leaf-cutter ants?
Have you ever seen the ants at the Atlanta airport? For a moment I thought they had crawled onto your site. Photo (not mine) here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/moria/67812206/in/set-1463249/
There are healthy colonies of leaf-cutter ants at the cemetary in Columbus, TX, about 80 miles west of Houston (bet you will hop the next jet to houston, Hunh?). I was with someone looking for antique roses. People in earlier times would plant a rose bush at their mother's grave, so the old rose bushes now found in Texas cemetaries have survived generations of the vicissitudes (sp?)of the Texas climate and hence are just about guaranteed to do well in one's yard. The leafcutters had major paths all through the lawn at the cemetary and could be seen in great numbers going out and then returning with pieces of green leaves. If leaf cutters are suitable for your habitat, then I assume the gel would appeal to fungus-cultivators generally. But the illumination problem might be the kicker as all the ants I tried around the William & Mary campus would do nothing in daylight or at night when I had the lights on. In fact they did not seem to do much even after dark, so it must take a special ant to thrive in your habitat. At the time of my failed ant-farm project, I recall reading that only the vendor's ants would do much in the open substrate of the habitat. Poor, disappointed Grrl Scientist!
Hilllady; thanks for the picture! those ants are very cute. do you know if they represent an identifiable species? if so, EO Wilson would be have enjoyed that sculpture! as for me, i hope to see that sculpture in person one day.
Biosparite; the blue gel contains "disease inhibitors" of an unknown nature, so i am not sure if leaf cutters would do very well. i could always ask the manufacturers if the gel might kill the ants' fungus and if not, i could then enlist a texan to collect a bunch of leaf cutter ants and mail them to me!
i did order ants early this morning, thanks to the magic of the internet. i guess excitement such as starting one's own ant farm must necessarily occur in increments, sigh.
I'm sure you thought of everything, but is it possible your electricity is being stolen? Have you talked to the landlord? As I recall Con Ed came by and found nothing amiss, but maybe you should splurge and hire an electrician to find if there's a problem in your building -- meanwhile the real problem has to be a conehead computer error. I sympathize!
I so want an ant farm now!
I'm not sure about the species of that Atlanta installation. I found an article that calls them "red ants," and they sure are red. The sculpture's called "Brute Neighbors" and was made by an artist named Joe Peragine, who teaches at Georgia State. That's the extent of my google-based knowledge--here's an article: http://www.gsu.edu/2195.html . It's a cool thing, totally unexpected to find in an airport. Really shifts your sense of scale. Not sure I'd want to farm them, though! :)
So I take it that the gel in the ant farm is nutritious despite the fungicides and whatever else is in there to discourage opportunists. The leaf cutters would then consume the gel as an acceptable substitute for their regular fungus gardens. Did you see the paper about how the leaf-cutter-ant fungus has evolved fungicidal substances active against ant fungus from other ant colonies? So the ants could not import the same species of fungus from another colony and successfully mix it with the ongoing fungus strain (I don't know how long a particular clone must be be isolated before it reacts against another fungus with a common ancestor). To cap this off, the fungicidal properties survive digestion in the ant, so when the ants apply their poop to nourish the fungus colony, the fertilizer will also kill intruder fungal strains of the same species.
technically it's illegal to swipe critters from parks, but what the hell. i found a few colonies from there. there's lots of places you can go lurking around unobtrusively and find ant colonies. ants are everywhere. even if you don't get a queen, but if you get some eggs and larvae, the guys will have fun for a while, and raise up all the kids.