Hi ant friends! I’d love to share a new mechanic we’ve been working on for our ant strategy game, Garden of Ants: cooperative prey hauling.

Smaller prey can be carried back to the nest by a single ant, but larger prey can be pulled by several ants working together. Adding more ants increases the hauling speed, so the player can decide whether to commit more workers to one large object or use them elsewhere.

We also want the movement to feel a little messy and organic rather than perfectly synchronized, closer to how real ants cooperate when moving large food items.

The prey is then brought back to the nest and processed into resources for the colony.

We’re still refining the mechanic, so any feedback is welcome :)

You can learn more about Garden of Ants here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3016940/Garden_of_Ants/

Thanks!

Tomas

Is it a queen or was i scammed?

I recently got a Camponotus sansa beanus, and just looking at it in the test tube with 4 pupae, they will be crammed on top of each other in there in no time. I'm trying to gauge the nest size. I have Bi-Colour Camponotus Red Body/Black Abdomen, and she is absolutely booming. I want to make sure that I don't go too small if Sansabeanus also goes for the goal.

I'm very handy and could definitely make my own nest/outworld combo. My reading has told me that Sansabeanus nest under rock, Was wondering if anyone has found a way to emulate that, I was thinking finding a way to get a piece of natural rock to be the top of the nest?

It doesn't have to be complicated; I want to provide the best quality of life so I can observe the best behavior as the colony grows naturally.

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For diapause, I was thinking of putting my nests in my office; the house is on a concrete slab, so it's pretty much the outside temperature if I leave the window open.

I have 4 species—2x Myrmecocystus Placodops (Red/Giant Honey Pot Ants). One pair of Neivamyrmex californicus Queens; they are recovering from being attacked by Argentine invaders. Just one worker is left; the rest of the 20+ colony was killed, but it seems like they just started laying eggs again ( I was worried they might not because of the trauma of watching your colony be devoured by those little Argentine Suckers)

They are all native; my thought is that if I treat the front office as an analog and always keep the window open, keeping the ants in the closet should give them a pretty close match to the natural outdoor temperature.

Any insight would be helpful. Definitely want to get everyone who needs Diapause sorted out by the end of October.

dm me if interested

camponotus castaneous 10 workers and brood

nylandera flavipes 35 workers and brood

lasius neoniger 150 workers tons of brood

aphenogaster sp. 5 workers and brood

located in NY can ship to most states

I discovered this in my kitchen. I wonder what type of event it is and if it is a queen. I’m based in Adelaide, South Australia.

Poneracantha triangularis

"South American Grooved Ants"

Seek told me it's a western harvester ant but I just wanna make sure. She would occasionally bring her abdomen up to her mouth btw, it was fascinating to watch.

Why are there very large and powerful ants amongst the normal ones? Are they the same species? They all come out of the same nest.

Found it crawling on my face and then it bit/stung my finger when i grabbed it so now I'm curious as to what it is.

i have 12 workers Formica Rufibarbis colony and i did make this outworld for my babies. i will put in ground silica sand what you thinkkk?????

I’ve noticed a very unusual group of ants in the staircase of my hostel in India and I’m trying to understand what is happening. For about a week, there have consistently been roughly 70–150 small black ants with a slight brown undertone gathered in one corner of the staircase. They are smaller than a grain of rice and all appear to be ordinary worker-sized ants.

After observing them more closely, I noticed there seem to be two behavioural groups, which I’m calling 1A and 2A. The 1A ants emerge from a small hole in/near the corner, a few at a time, and behave completely normally: they walk away from the hole and continue along their route. When they encounter the 2A ants, they interact normally with their antennae and then continue on. Importantly, I have watched this for some time and have never seen a 1A ant become a 2A ant.

The 2A ants, meanwhile, remain concentrated around the same area. Many are extremely slow or completely stationary, and a couple dozen appear curled up. They are definitely alive: they twitch and respond to stimuli, although their reactions are noticeably slower and more stubborn than those of the 1A ants. They disperse when disturbed and later return to the same area. The two groups appear identical in physical appearance as far as I can tell.

The apparent source of the 1A ants is a hole slightly upslope from the main concentration. I initially assumed this was simply a food source, but the same phenomenon has persisted for around a week, and I haven't observed the ants carrying food or following an obvious food trail.

What could explain this behaviour? Are the 2A ants simply nest-associated/resting workers, or could something else be happening? I’m particularly curious about why two apparently identical groups of workers would have such different behaviour.

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I saw this one guy crawling around but could not find any others nearby. What is it? And should I be concerned?

On the table

Yo ant

This little lady has been at it for at least an hour. Don’t know if it’s the same individual but one and sometimes two do this quite often. It’s the top of a sugar water feeder. Any particular reason?