u/InfiniteSearch3409

Camponotus castaneus colony with 1 Queen, 7 workers & their brood

Video recorded on Samsung Galaxy s25 Ultra

Leptogenys elongata

Video recorded on Samsung Galaxy s25 Ultra

Poneracantha triangularis

Video recorded with Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Razorjaw Ants

Queen was caught at the beginning of June in Houston, Texas, USA

Leptogenys elongata

Please help me! I need Atta texana fungus. Queen's first worker eclosed yesterday. Queen put all her fungus in trash pile 2 days ago for some reason. Now she has about 6 or 7 workers with 15-20 more pupae ready to eclose soon. Idk what went wrong with the fungus. Everything seemed fine for 8 weeks then out of nowhere the fungus failed.

Caught this queen on 5/27/26 in Houston, TX, USA. Her first nanitic enclosed today.

Leptogenys elongata

Leptogenys elongata

This videos shows different areas of this colony's nest and the worker ants tending to those area's needs. In one area there is a pile of cocoons/pupae. The worker ants are constantly rearranging the cocoons to keep them in the most optimal position depending on the age of the cocoon, nest temperature and humidity. Another area is for the eggs and larvae. The larvae are spaced out and tend to not be piled up since they need constant attention and are at a higher risk of mortality from things like the temperature and humity. The larvae also have to be fed regularly and tend to try to eat anything edible they can reach when they're hungry, including each other. The eggs are usually kept in the same area as the larvae, but the eggs are kept in clutches/stacks, usually between 10-30 eggs per clutch. At the beginning of the video, near the left center of the screen, is a pile of substrate. The substrate is actually piled on top of a large larvae that is ready to weave its cocoon using the silk that larvae produce and the substrate. When the larvae reaches this stage in its growth, the worker ants will pile substrate around and on top of the larvae to assist it in creating the cocoon. At first the cocoon will be white, then over the course of a day or 2 it will darken to brown and after a couple of weeks in the cocoon, the workers will tear it open and pull the newly formed worker out and groom it, cleaning off any residual silk that may be stuck the new worker. This process takes about 30-60 minutes from the time the workers begin tearing the cocoon open. This species' nest is constantly active. At night it will slow down a little but the workers never leave the eggs, larvae or pupae/cocoons in the same area for very long.

Queen was caught just over a month ago

Leptogenys elongata

Colony currently has between 60-70 workers with lots more on the way. I'd like to get them to around 200 workers if possible. In nature they usually keep their colonies pretty small with around 30-50 workers. Luckily I have tons of wild colonies of this species right outside my neighborhood. So I been poaching pupae from wild colonies and brood boosting this one. So far I've added around 30-40 pupae to what the queen had already produced. They had about 30 workers when I caught this colony a little over a month ago.

Leptogenys elongata

Leptogenys elongata

Caught in Houston, Texas, USA. Species is either Cyphomyrmex rimosus or Cyphomyrmex minutus.