Antz 2

Feed ants, see action!

Well, a little bit more than just watching an ant hole.

This time I gave my red ants three delicious treats: a chunk of bread that was dipped in my scrambled egg (while still raw) then soaked in water, a crushed Stacy's pita chip and Trader Joe's grated parmesan cheese.

I thought the cheese would be very popular because it is fatty and easy to carry. I thought the pita chip would be good because it's fatty. The eggy, soggy bread would be attractive since it gave them protein, starch and water.

I guess the ants were thirsty. They really worked on the bread. The pita chip crumbs were enjoyed. Many times the little ants were so thrilled with their pita chip chunk that they'd race off with it. Not to their hole but off in some random direction. Those little ants really can carry many times their weight. And they can go very fast while carrying it.

A little of the parmesan cheese was taken.

I'll give you two versions of this one. One that lasts 46 seconds and one that is three times faster.

I had the camera take pictures every second for an hour and a quarter. I need to stop wasting uses of the shutter. I used only every fourth frame for the first movie and even fewer for the faster one. I'll learn.

Here are ants eating their treats at a rate of one frame taken every four seconds played back at 24 frames per second. In the first few seconds a couple of largish pieces of the pita chips are seen going down the hole.


And here they are speeded up three times. You can see the edge of the bread shrink. I don't know if it's from being eaten, drunk or from evaporation.


Well, at least there is a bit more action than in my first ant hill attempt.