On Christmas day, I pulled the Myrmica sp. colony out of hibernation for a short period of time to test out the new macro lenses I obtained recently. I still need to work on the lighting and focus, but overall it is a significant improvement on my last attempts. Unfortunately, it seems that for whatever reason this colony ended up eating the majority of its brood during the months it has been in hibernation, leaving only a few small larvae. This may be typical for the species, as I know many ants will not care for brood over the winter.
Conner, your photo is certainly clearer! good for you! I,m having lunch today with your Nana! we will surely be talking about your work. How new to me that some ants devour their young! Is it from hunger?
Happy New Year and Success with your experiments.
sr. therese
Thanks! Sorry about the late reply. I believe that this phenomenon is generally caused by hunger, although I think some ants simply do it to avoid having to care for hungry brood over the winter.
I hope you had a great new year!