2022 · Oecophylla smaragdina

Weaver ant colony Ended

A founding colony of weaver ants (Oecophylla smaragdina): a single queen and about seventeen workers, housed in a test tube kept in a dark, cool cupboard. At about thirty workers, the colony was moved to a plastic tub outdoors, and the queen died within one night.

The collapse later became the starting observation for the essay “Ants in the Heat of Survival”.