Israel is a very interesting place when it comes to ants. There are a lot of species here. We even have African-style Driver #Ants (Dorylus)
I really want to see fifty million ants crawl out of the ground. That has to be an amazing sight... although, I will be keeping safe distance should I ever get the chance to see that.
I'm told that Camponotus and Messor species are the easiest to keep for newcomers to #antkeeping , but lord knows what I'll find when I actually go out there. All of it is very exciting and I'm looking forward to figuring out my first colony.
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@Surasanji Me and you have had ants ont he brain lately it seems.
@freemo They're just really, really interesting to me. This sort of "communal organism" is really very cool. No ant survives on it's own, it needs the colony as a whole.
It's a very interesting study in survival method, and it's absolutely been effective for the ants.
But, yeah. I want to get into #antkeeping specifically because I'm wondering if by observing ants I might realize something about myself and human interaction.
@Surasanji They really are, thos ehoney pot ants still have my mind blown :)
@freemo Yeah! It's a very neat thing- how ants feed one another is another one of those 'wow factor' things for me.
@Surasanji well what interests me is the idea of using a living body as a sort of honey comb.. a living granary of sorts.. i mean it makes sense thir bodies probably produce chemicals that prserve it which is a lot easier than something external.
@freemo Most 'developed' ants have social stomachs where they share food throughout the colony- the honeypot ants just take it a step further.
There are also the Messor species which keep literal granaries due to being more primitive and lacking the social stomach. They make 'ant bread' from seeds to share through the colony- which is really cool, thinking about how those ants keep food for the winter in literal granaries.
@Surasanji I also find the ant graveyard cool too. There is a special sort of lipid which identifies an ant as dead and they take them to the graveyard. If you put the lipid on a living ant they take him the the graveyard and heeven stays there as if he thinks he is dead. At least until it wears off.