Ants!

As previously mentioned, I gave O an Ant Works antquarium for xmas. We decided that it might be difficult to find ants for it outside in the winter, so we sent away the order form that came with the Ant Works to get some ants sent to us in the mail from the UK. Kinda silly, I know, why pay for something that you could just go outside and find, but we were partly just wanting to order ants in the mail. We've been waiting this whole time for them, we sent the form just after xmas, and they finally arrived yesterday. I imagined they'd arrive in a small box, but the ants were much smaller than I imagined, so they came in a small plastic container about the size of a film canister which was just mailed in a bubble envelope. Around 25 ants were in there, tiny, yellow-brown things. In the container, a blue strip of moist paper was wound up loosely and the ants were within that. We unwound the blue strip and found a clump of ants that were kind of immobile due to being cold, sitting all day in our mailbox that is open to the outside. Once we poked them though, they woke up and started crawling in all directions, leaving O and I to do our best to shove them in the Ant Works, collect the ones that fell onto the table, and watch that the ones that were in the Ant Works did not crawl back out, all at the same time. We did our best, put some ants back in the plastic mailing container, and put those in the fridge to calm them down (this was recommended by the ant instruction sheet. Really!) We did fairly well in round 2, and ended up giving up on only about 5-6 of them, which I tapped out onto the balcony to fend for themselves in the cold. (I know, it's cruel. I'm a horrible person.) So then we watched how the others were doing in the Ant Works box. So far, they are still getting used to their surroundings. Instead of exploring though, they've huddled together in one corner, leaving only about 3 bold ants roaming around and sniffing things out. The instructions said this might happen though, and recommended covering the box (they feel more comfortable in the dark, I guess), so we threw a towel over it. I hope they start crawling around soon, and even better, start digging their tunnels. I was all excited when I saw one ant carrying a clump of the blue gel, but he didn't carry it for long. O took some photos and has posted one.