One thing I've been interested in recently is making a large ant colony. More specifically a large ant colony utilizing that blue gelatinous substrate that is found in AntWorks(c) ant farms. I've been trying to find a general list of the chemical ingredients but haven't had much luck so far.
I asked my Chemistry instructor who was not sure what it could be and doesn't have the spectroscopy equipment available to see its chemical make-up. I figured it could possibly be an agar solution with some sort of fungicidal agent added to it, and when I presented this idea to my Biology instructor he disagreed stating that the agar would dry up too quickly. As an alternative he figures it could possibly be a chemical called polyacrylamide. While I'm not sure what it is, I do know that I would love to have a large amount of it.
In my region there isn't very many species of ants. The most common ants found are black ants (Formica podzolica) which while not as stunning as the green-head ants (Rhytidoponera metallica) found in Australia, I'm sure that F. podzolica would be amusing in their own way.
Although if I were to start a colony I think I would try to use one of the more interesting ants in my region, the carpenter ant (Camponotus herculeanus). The problem with using C. herculeanus though, is that I'm not sure if it would even try to tunnel in the jelly-like substrate. I know that they don't actually eat the wood that is left over from creating their galleries, so I don't think it would be too big of a stretch...
Here are some pictures:
I asked my Chemistry instructor who was not sure what it could be and doesn't have the spectroscopy equipment available to see its chemical make-up. I figured it could possibly be an agar solution with some sort of fungicidal agent added to it, and when I presented this idea to my Biology instructor he disagreed stating that the agar would dry up too quickly. As an alternative he figures it could possibly be a chemical called polyacrylamide. While I'm not sure what it is, I do know that I would love to have a large amount of it.
In my region there isn't very many species of ants. The most common ants found are black ants (Formica podzolica) which while not as stunning as the green-head ants (Rhytidoponera metallica) found in Australia, I'm sure that F. podzolica would be amusing in their own way.
Although if I were to start a colony I think I would try to use one of the more interesting ants in my region, the carpenter ant (Camponotus herculeanus). The problem with using C. herculeanus though, is that I'm not sure if it would even try to tunnel in the jelly-like substrate. I know that they don't actually eat the wood that is left over from creating their galleries, so I don't think it would be too big of a stretch...
Here are some pictures:
C. herculeanus
F. podzolica
R. metallica
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