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Antquarium Frequently Asked Questions

There's nothing more exciting than owning, studying, and taking care of animals. And ANTQUARIUM will let you do just that with one special kind of animal: ants. With ANTQUARIUM you'll discover a lot about nature's secrets. You'll be able to watch ants as they build a complex system of tunnels, creating a beautiful gelscape at the same time, observing how they react to different types of food. You'll enjoy hours and hours of entertaining fun and excitement with ANTQUARIUM. Everything you need to observe ants is included with your ANTQUARIUM:

1. ANTQUARIUM habitat
2. ANTQUARIUM guide
3. ant certificate.

The ANTQUARIUM guide provides step-by-step instructions for putting together your ANTQUARIUM habitat and taking care of ants. It also includes lots of information about ant research, physiology and lifestyles and how to keep a journal and conduct experiments. Ants are truly fascinating to observe. Just complete and mail in your ant certificate, together with the required postage and handling fees, and you'll receive a vial of either pohonomyrmex californicus (California harvester) or pogonomyrmex occidentallis (Western harvester) ants.

ANT ANSWERS
• What do I have to do to get my ants?
Use the enclosed ant certificate to request your supply of ants. You can even find and use your own ants. BE CAREFUL: don't mix different species of ants or allow different colonies to mingle.

• How long will it take to receive the ants once I've placed an order?
In general, your ants should arrive within two to three weeks after mailing your ant certificate. We will send your ants by mail as soon as we receive your order. If the weather is extremely cold, your order may be delayed by one week in order to protect the ants.

• Will a lot of ants die when shipped by mail?
Because some of the ants will die during shipment, we send many more ants than are needed for your ANTQUARIUM habitat. If you live in a cold area, keep an eye out for the mail delivery. You don't want the ants to freeze outside in a cold mailbox.

• Will I also receive a queen ant?
The handling of ant queens is controlled by federal regulations. You will receive only worker ants, which are non-reproducing female ants. Even without a queen, these ants are exciting creatures to watch. If you decide to find your own ants, look for the queen, eggs, and larvae.

• Can ants escape from the ANTQUARIUM habitat?
No. The ANTQUARIUM habitat is escape-proof. However, always handle your ANTQUARIUM habitat with care. Don't drop it.

• Does the ANTQUARIUM habitat have enough air?
Yes. Small vents built into the ANTQUARIUM frame supply enough air for the ants to breathe but are too small for them to escape.

• How long will my ants live?
With proper care ants will even live up to six months.

TAKING CARE OF YOUR ANTQUARIUM:
1. When you're not observing the ants, use black paper to cover the bottom half of the ANTQUARIUM habitat. This simulates the darkness of their natural underground environment, making it easier for them to build tunnels.

2. Keep the ANTQUARIUM habitat at room temperature, between 65°F and 80°F (18°C-27°C). The warmer their environment, the more active your ants will be.

DON'TS:
- Don't touch the ants: they may bite and sting you to protect themselves!
- Don't shake the ANTQUARIUM habitat. Jiggling it will bother your ants and might damage their tunnels. Being as careful as you can will make it easier for your ants to adjust.
- Don't put your ANTQUARIUM habitat in direct sunlight because the ants may get too hot and die. And don't leave the ants outside because they might get too cold.
- Don't let different types of ants live in the same ANTQUARIUM habitat. Ants use a specific chemical scent to identify each other. In fact, ants from one colony will fight other ants if they don't have the same scent.

BE CAREFUL: don't release these ants into your local environment. They might damage some plants. They should always remain in the ANTQUARIUM habitat.

IS IT IMPORTANT TO STUDY ANTS?

Entomologists are scientists who study ants and other types of insects. They study them to find out which ones should be controlled since they might be harmful to humans and which ones could be used to make our world a better place to live in. Observing insects and analysing their behaviour might also help us to discover more about ourselves. Watch your ants and become an amateur entomologist. You won't believe what incredible feats of engineering these little creatures are capable of!
The Earth has more than 4,600 kinds of ants. Ants can be found everywhere: from the coast to the tallest peaks, and from decomposing tree trunks to your kitchen.

You'll be truly amazed at what ants can do. They can excavate and create an extensive network of catacombs that are sometimes even up to fifteen feet deep. They can pick up and carry objects weighing several times their own weight. Ants can clamber up trees that are as much as a 100 feet (30.5 metres) tall. If you could move as fast as ants, you'd be able to run 65 miles per hour (104 kph)!
One of the most interesting things about ants is that they work together. Ants cannot survive alone. Like us, they live in communities. They cooperate with each other to build their homes, forage for food, care for the queen and the young ants, and protect their habitat. Others have to be prompted to get things done. Ant colonies wage battles against other ant colonies and, just like in human wars, lots of ants are either killed or injured.

ANT DISCOVERIES
People have been wondering about how ants communicate with each other for a long time. Benjamin Franklin conducted experiments with ants to find out how they let each other know where to find food. Since then, many more interesting things have been discovered. Did you know that ants have special glands that make chemicals? These chemicals, called pheromones, make other ants change they way they act. Everyone has seen a large column of ants walking along the same path. Well, they're probably following the pheromones that were put there by an ant from their colony!

Amazingly, ants can find their way home even when they're far, far away. Entomologists have determined that some ants can use the sun to find their way home - even on a cloudy day. Experiments have been conducted to discover if ants can see colour. The results of those experiments aren't conclusive. One entomologist discovered that ants can discern the differences in certain shapes. In fact, ants seem to like vertical stripes more than horizontal ones.
Can ants learn? You've probably heard that scientists put rats in a maze to see if they can learn how to find their way out. But did you know that scientists have also tried to find out if ants can learn to complete a maze? Some ants are very good at finding their way out. The ants that have to look for food and then find their way back to their anthill can also find their way through a maze. Could pheromones be the reason why they did so well?

An entomologist conducted a remarkable experiment to determine if ants could solve a problem. He made a small island of dirt, surrounded it with water, and then put some ant pupae (young ants) on it. To save the pupae, the adult ants threw dirt on the water until they had built a bridge and were able to bring them home. That same entomologist then tried another experiment. This time he made an island without any pupae on it. But even without any pupae, the ants still threw dirt on the water! The scientist discovered that ants have a tendency to fill in water with dirt.
Experiments and data sheets are included in this guide so that you can conduct some experiments with your ants just like an amateur entomologist. Don't forget to take good care of your ants because they're truly amazing animals!

ANT JOURNAL
Scientists jot down all their observations, experimental results and discoveries in notebooks that are called journals. It's a very good way for them to remember what they saw and when they saw it. It's fun to keep records in a journal! To make your own journal, just use a regular notebook or bind paper in a homemade cover to make your own.
To keep your journal, do the following:
1- make up a title for your journal and write it on the cover together with the date and time that you put the ants into the ANTQUARIUM habitat.
2- record the date and time each time you begin observing your ants.
3- list the equipment that you use, such as a magnifying glass, paper, stones, or other items.
4- make observations about ant activities and write them in your journal. Try to answer questions like: do ants sleep and if so, where? How many are working? How do ants react when they are in groups? How many ants die? Do they like one particular layer of coloured sand more than another? Take notes and/or draw pictures. If you conduct an experiment, describe it in detail in your journal.
5- use a piece of string to measure the length of the ant tunnels from outside your ANTQUARIUM. How many inches or centimetres of tunnels do you think they can dig in one week?

ANT ACTIVITES
ANT ACTIVITY # 1
Observing the body of an ant
You can learn a lot about an ant's body by looking at it very closely. Take one of the pages of your journal and do the following:
1- draw a picture of an ant's head and show all the parts. Don't worry if it's not very artistic. See what different things are on its head. Try using a magnifying glass (if you have one).
2- draw a picture of its middle part. What's connected to the middle part?
3- Draw a picture of the back end of the ant's body. Does it have any markings?

ANT ACTIVITY # 2
Pheromones
As we already mentioned, pheromones are chemicals that one ant gives off to make other ants act in a certain way. Did you notice that your ants move their dead companions to a garbage pile away from their tunnels. There is a specific pheromone that tells them when ants are dead. Ants will move a live ant to the garbage pile if you put a chemical called oleic acid on it. They will continue to carry that poor ant to the garbage pile until the smell of the oleic acid has completely worn off.
There's a simple way to find out how pheromones work. Tap on the habitat glass using your fingernail. One ant will notice it first and give off an “alarm” pheromone that the other ants will detect. Then other ants will get very excited and come running to find out what's happening! Use a small stick to tap lightly on the frame. Observe how many ants come running.

ANT ACTIVITY # 3
Ant's vision
As we already mentioned, entomologists have determined that ants seem to like vertical (up and down) stripes better than horizontal (side to side) ones. Try this experiment and see if you agree with their conclusions:
1- copy the squares shown below and tape them against the outside of the ANTQUARIUM frame.
2- Observe the ants for five or ten minutes and then fill in the chart below. Put a check in the right box for each ant that's attracted to the vertical or horizontal lines. Jot down your observations in the space on the right. Leave the papers against the ANTQUARIUM habitat for one or two days. Describe what the ants did when they noticed the paper. Based on your results, do you think that your ants showed a preference?

ANT ACTIVITY # 4
Ants never see red
Did you know that ants can't see red? Use red cellophane to make a light shield. The shield will only allow red light to pass through. Because ants can't see red light, they'll think they're always the dark. Watch them as they go about their everyday business.

AN ANT FROM THE OUTSIDE IN
There are three parts to an ant: a head, a thorax, and an abdomen. The more interesting body parts of ants, from head to abdomen, are listed below. Some ants have eyes that are very well developed while others are blind. Ant eyes are different from ours. In fact, they consist of a lot of tiny eyes (called ommatidia).
- Ant antennae (feelers) are very important because they use them to smell, taste and touch. How do your ants find the food that you leave for them?
- Ants have strong mandibles that they use to move soil, cut up food, fight, bite, carry other ants and move eggs and larvae. The tongue and other mouth parts are located under the mandibles.
- An ant's legs and wings are attached to the thorax (only the queen and male ants have wings and only for a very short time in their lives).
- The little brushes on an ant's two front legs are used to clean its antennae and back legs.
- The abdomen of an ant consists of two different parts. The rear end of the abdomen is called the gaster. In order to lift a large object an ant will often move its gaster forward.
- Not all ants sting. However, stinging ants have a stinger at the end of their gaster. When it stings, an ant injects formic acid into its enemy. This can paralyze or kill other ants.

AN ANT FROM THE INSIDE OUT
Just like us, an ant has a brain, a heart, a nerve cord, and a stomach. However, an ant's organs are nothing like ours. Here's a picture of an ant's heart. Does it look like a human heart? Even though there aren't any veins or arteries to hold the “blood”, the ant's heart still pumps a colourless liquid freely through the ant's body. The blood is used to eliminate any waste products.
- Did you know that an ant has two stomachs? The little one is the ant's own stomach that it uses to digest food.
- The other stomach is a “public stomach” called the crop. The crop acts like a large storage tank since it holds food that can be shared by all the other ants in the colony. An ant can bring up some of the food stored in its crop and feed it, mouth to mouth, to another ant. (some entomologists believe that this is the way that ants share chemicals and tell each other what needs to be done for the community.)

THE LIFE OF AN ANT
An ant colony begins when a young queen and male ants leave the nest where they were born, flying high into the sky. The males soon die after they mate. Then, the queens lose their wings. The queens of some species of ants dig into the ground. All alone, each queen clears a small chamber, seals the tunnel, and starts laying eggs. The queens will never leave their chambers.
The eggs hatch and become larvae which are little, legless, worm-like creatures that must be fed by the queen. When the larvae are fully grown, they become “pupae”. Ant pupae have either a barrel or an ant shape.

Over time, new adult ants emerge from the pupae. They busily start working to prepare the new nest but also have to go out and find food. The job of these new worker ants is to take care of the queen along with the new eggs and larvae. The queen will spend the rest of her life laying eggs. Most of those eggs will become workers, while only a few will become either males or queens. The workers are all females, even though they can't lay eggs. They are assigned to do the many different jobs that are necessary to guarantee that the ant colony will survive. The jobs depend on the life style of that particular type of ant. Of all the different types of social insects, ants have the most interesting variations in community life. Harvester ants dig deep underground “cities” that often extend as much as fifteen feet below the surface. They gather seeds for future dinners, storing them in underground bins. If a seed sprouts, an ant will grab it and dump it outside many feet away from the entrance to the “city.” After a rain, ants immediately start removing seeds from the nest laying them on the ground and waiting until they have dried. Then they grab their seeds and scamper back into the nest where they are again neatly piled in their bins. The harvester ants like to keep their nest spick and span and usually are as neat above ground as they are below. They make a pile of garbage, including dead ants, away from the entrance to the nest.

In Africa, the fierce ant “hunters” (called army ants) are always on the go and don't have a permanent home. Army ants eat insects, dead animals, or any living creature that they can catch. They have been known to reduce a tethered horse to a skeleton in a matter of hours. Can you imagine how strong their mandibles are! They do most of their hunting when they have larvae to feed. (their queen lays 25,000 eggs at a time.) When these ants go through villages, the people often leave until the ants have gone away. You shouldn't be surprised if you see row after row of ants carrying little leafy “sails”! Called “leaf cutters” or “fungus growers”, these special “farmer” ants chew up leaves to make a special kind of spongy mulch. They spread this mulch over the floors of large underground chambers and use it to grow a special kind of fungus. Small bulbs grow on the fungus that is eaten by the ants. These ants have to be very good farmers in order to grow enough food for the entire colony, which may consist of several million ants.
Some ants have to take care of special “cows”. These “cows” are insects called aphids. The ants stroke the aphids to make them give off little drops of liquid, called honeydew. One group of these “dairyman” ants uses living “storage tanks”. Certain members of this group are loaded up with honeydew until they can't even move. They spend their lives hanging from the ceiling of their chamber, feeding hungry ants that pass by, taking all the extra honeydew from the ants that collect it. Now you know why they're known as “honey pot ants”.
Some ants make slaves out of other ants. They raid other colonies and steal the pupae. When those pupae become adults, they are used as slaves.

There is something common to all these different ant communities. They consist of female workers that take care of the queen and the young ants. They work together to make sure that their colony survives, and that's just what they do. Ants are some of the longest-living insects. In fact, some ant queens have been known to live up to fifteen years, while workers may live up to seven years. A you can tell, ants are a very successful group of animals!
There are some very interesting books about ants. Take the time to visit our public library and discover a lot more interesting facts about this special type of animal.

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