Day Eight

February 22, 2010

I am sorry to have to report the first casualty in several days: Only 11 ants appear to be among the living; one dead ant (oddly, not curled into a ball, at least not yet) is behind the Farm House.

The cause of death is unknown, but since there were no signs of foul play, I am assuming that ant’s demise is due to natural causes (or the delayed result of shipping trauma).

Here is a look at the Ant Farm in Mourning:

8:11:34 AM

More tunnels, certainly, and it appears the grooming area has moved to Cooper’s Mound (not surprising due to yesterday’s tunneling of Smithie’s Mound).

Checking back in with the ants this evening, one interesting activity was taking place:

Foraging for Dinner

You may have noticed a tan-colored smudge directly underneath the Farm House. That smudge is composed of the pre-packaged Ant Food that came with the ants. I put a pinch of the food into the habitat back in the beginning and some of it went down the portal. At that time, the ants didn’t treat it as anything special and filled in sand over and around it.