Check out our colony of hundreds of leafcutter ants. They live in a large glass ant case called a formicary, in our Creepy Crawlies gallery. Watch the ants duck in and out of the nest boxes, carry sections of leaves across aerial walkways and sip thirstily from the surrounding moat.
Looking after our ant colony
- The ideal temperature for the ants is 24-27°C and the ideal humidity is about 70%. If the temperature goes above 27°C, the queen becomes infertile and dies.
- Imagine sticking your hands into a cage full of hundreds of ants with sharp pincers. We do this regularly to clean the formicary.
- As well as leaves, we also scatter cereals, fruits, nuts, seeds and cooked meats. This is not food for the ants. Instead, they create a mulch and eat the fungus that grows on the mulch. If we don’t keep this supply varied, the ants are tempted to forage elsewhere, and have a tendency to escape.